from the power of custom---from our own bad | the first encounter, becomes a hardy veteran inclinations---and from the pains taken by the in a few campaigns. Habit renders danger had to corrupt us. familiar, and of courfe indifferent to him. In our carliest youth, the contagion of manners is obfervable. In the boy, yet incapable of having any thing inftilled into him, we eafily discover from his firft actions, and rude attempts at language, the kind of perfons with whom he has been brought up; we fee the early spring of a civilized education, or the firit wild fhoots of rufticity. As he enters farther into life, his behaviour, manners, and converfation, all take their caft for the company he keeps. Obferve the peafant, and the man of education; the difference is ftriking. And yet God hath bestowed equal talents on each. The only difference is, they have been thrown into different fcenes of life and have had commerce with perfons of different stations. Nor are manners and behaviour more cafily caught, than opinions, and principles. In childhood and youth, we naturally adopt the fentiments of thofe about us. And as we advance in life, how few of us think for our felves? How many of us are fatisfied with taking our opinions at fecond-hand? The great power and force of custom forms another argument againft keeping bad company. However feriously difpofed we may be; and however thocked at the firft approaches of vice; this fhocking appearance goes off, upon an intimacy with it. Cuftom will foon render the most difguftful thing familiar. And this is indeed a kind provifion of nature, to render labour, and toil, and danger, which are the lot of man, more eafy to him. The raw foldier, who trembles at See this subject treated more at large in an anonymous pamphlet, on the employment of But habit, which is intended for our good, may, like other kind appointments of nature, be converted in a mifchief. The well difpofed youth entering first into bad company, is fhocked at what he hears, and what he fees. The good principles, which he had imbibed, ring in his cars an alarming leffon against the wickedness of his companions. But, alas! this fenfibility is but of a day's continuance. The next jovial meeting makes the horrid picture of yesterday more eafily endured. Virtue is foon thought a fevere rule; the gofpel, an inconvenient reftraint; a few pangs of confcience now and then interrupt his pleafures; and whisper to him, that he once had better thoughts: but even thefe by degrees die away; and he who at firft was shocked even at the appearance of vice, is formed by cuftom into a profligate leader of vicious pleafures---perhaps into an abandoned tempter to vice.--.So carefully fhould we oppose the first approaches of fin fo vigilant should we be against fo infidious an enemy! Our own bad inclinations from another argument againft bad company. We have fo many paffions and appetites to govern; fe many bad propenfities of different kinds to watch, that, amidst such a variety of enemies within, we ought at least to be on our guard against thofe without. The breaft even of a good man is reprefented in fcripture, and experienced in fact, to be in a state of warfarc. His vicious inclinations are continually drawing him one way; while his virtue is making efforts another. And if the fcriptures represent this as the cafe even of a good man, whofe paffions, it may be imagined, are become in fome degree cool, and temperate, and and who has made fome progrefs in a virtuous courfe; what may we fuppofe to be the danger of a raw unexperienced youth, whofe pathons and appetites are violent and feducing, and whofe mind is in a still lefs confirmed ftate? It is his part furely to keep out of the way of temptation; and to give his bad inclinations as little room as poffible to acquire new ftrength. Gilpin. § 38. Ridicule one of the chief arts of corruption-bad company injures our characters, as well as manners-prefumption the forerunner of ruin the advantages of good company equal to the difadvantages of bad-cautions in forming intimacies. Thefe arguments against keeping bad company, will fill receive additional ftrength, if we confider farther, the great pains taken by the bad to corrupt others. It is a very true, bur lamentable fact, in the history of human nature, that bad men take more pains to corrupt their own fpecies, than virtuous men do to reform them. Hence thofe fpecious arts, that how of friendship, that appearance of diinterestedness, with which he profligate feducer endeavours to lure the unwary youth; and at the fame time, yielding to his inclinations, feems to follow rather than to lead him. Many are the arts of thefe corrupters; but their principal art is ridicule. By this they endeavour to laugh out of countenance all the better principles of their wavering profelyte; and make him think contemptibly of thofe, whom he formerly refpected; by this they stifle the ingenuous blufh, and fiBilly defroy all fenfe of fhame. Their caufe is below argument. They aim not therefore reafoning, Raillery is the weapon they employ; and who is there, that hath the fteaducts to hear perfons and things, whatever reverence he may have had for them, the fubject of continual ridicule, without losing that reverence by degrees? Having thus confidered what principally makes bad company dangerous, I shall just add, that even were your morals in no danger from fuch intercourfe, your characters would infallibly fuffer. The world will always judge of you by your companions: and nobody will fuppofe, that a youth of virtuous principles himself, can poffibly form a connection with a profligate. In reply to the danger fuppofed to arife from bad company, perhaps the youth may fay, he is fo firm in his own opinions, fo fteady in his principies, that he thinks himself fecure; and need not reftrain himself from the most unreferved conversation. Alas! this fecurity is the very brink of the precipice: nor hath vice in her whole train a more dangerous enemy to you, than prefumption. Caution, ever awake to danger, is a guard against it. But fecurity lays every guard afleep. "Let him who thinketh he "ftandeth," faith the apostle, "take heed, “left he fall." Even an apoftle himself did fall, by thinking that he food fecure. "Though I should die with thee," faid St. Peter to his mafter, "yet will I not deny "thee." That very night, notwithstanding this boafted fecurity, he repeated the crime three feveral times. And can we fuppofe, that prefumption, which occafioned an apostle's fall, thall not ruin an unexperienced youth? The story is recorded for our inftruction; and should be a standing leffon against prefuming upon our own ftrength. In conclufion, fuch as the dangers are, which arife from bad company, fuch are the advantages, which accrue from good. We imitate, and catch the manners and fenti ments ments of good men, as we do of bad. Cuftom, which renders vice lefs a deformity, renders virtue more lovely. Good examples have a force beyond inftruction, and warm us into emulation beyond precept; while the countenance and converfation of virtuous men encourage, and draw out into action every kindred difpofition of our hearts. Befides, as a fenfe of thame often prevents our doing a right thing in bad company; it operates in the fame way in preventing our doing a wrong one in good. Our character becomes a pledge; and we cannot, without a kind of dithonour, draw back. It is not poffible, indeed, for a youth, yet unfurnished with knowledge (which fits him for good company) to chufe his companions as he pleafes. A youth muft have fomething peculiarly attractive, to qualify him for the acquaintance of men of citablifhed reputation. What he has to do, is, at all events, to avoid bad company; and to endeavour, by improving his mind and morals, to qualify himself for the beft. Happy is that youth, who, upon his entrance into the world, can chufe his company with difcretion. There is often in vice, a gaiety, an unreferve, a freedom of manners, which are apt at fight to engage the unwary: while virtue, on the other hand,is often modeft, referved, diffident, backward, and eafily difconcerted. The freedom of manners, however engaging, may cover a very corrupt heart: and this aukwardnefs, however unpleafing, may veil a thoufand virtues. Suffer not your mind, therefore, to be cafily either engaged, or difgutted at firft fight. Form your intimacies with referve: and if drawn unawares into an acquaintance you difapprove, immediately retreat. Open not your hearts to every profeflion of friendship. They, whofe friendship is worth accepting, are, as you ought to be, reserved in offering it. Chufe your companions, not merely for the fake of a few outward accomplishments---for the idle pleature of spending an agreeable hour; but mark their difpofition to virtue or vice; and, as much as poffible, chufe thofe for your companions, whom you fee others respect: always remembering, that upon the choice of your company depends in a great measure the fuccefs of all you have learned; the hopes of your friends; your future characters in life; and, what you ought above all other things to value, the purity of your hearts. Gilpin. § 39. On Honour. Every principle that is a motive to good actions ought to be encouraged, fince men are of fo different a make, that the fame principle does not work equally upon all minds. What fome men are prompted to by confcience, duty, or religion, which are only different names for the fame thing, others are prompted to by honour. The fenfe of honour is of fo fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in fuch as have been cultivated by great examples, or a refined education. This effay therefore is chiefly defigned for those, who by means of any of thefe advantages are, or ought to be, actuated by this glorious principle. But as nothing is more pernicious than a principle of action, when it is mifunderflood, I fhall confider honour with refpect to three forts of men. First of all, with regard to those who have a right notion ofit. Secondly, with regard to thofe who have a mistaken notion of it. And thirdly, with regard to those who treat it as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule. In the first place, true honour, though it be | man; but we find several who so much abuse a different principle from religion, is that this notion, that they place the whole idea of which produces the fame effects. The lines honour in a kind of brutal courage; by which of action, though drawn from different parts, means we have had many among us, who terminate in the fame point. Religion em- have called themfelves men of honour, that braces virtue as it is enjoined by the laws of would have been a difgrace to a gibbet. In a God; honour, as it is graceful and ornamen-word, the man who facrifices any duty of a tal to human nature. The religious man reafonable creature to a prevailing mode or fears, the man of honour fcorns, to do an ill fafhion; who looks upon any thing as honouraction. The latter confiders vice as fome-able that is difpleafing to his Maker, or de thing that is beneath him; the other, as fome- ftructive to fociety; who thinks himself obthing that is offenfive to the Divine Being: the liged by this principle to the practice of fome ene, as what is unbecoming; the other, as virtues, and not of others, is by no means to what is forbidden. Thus Seneca fpeaks in be reckoned among true men of honour. the natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares "that were there to God to fee and punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of fo mean, fo base, and fo vile a nature." I fhall conclude this head with the defcriptica of honour in the part of young Juba: Honour's a facred tie, the law of kings, And imitates her actions where she is not; Timogenes was a lively inftance of one actuated by falfe honour. Timogenes would fmile at a man's jeft who ridiculed his Maker, and at the fame time run a man through the body that spoke ill of his friend. Timogenes would have fcorned to have betrayed a fecret that was intrufted with him, though the fate of his country depended upon the discovery of it. Timogenes took away the life of a young fellow in a duel, for having spoken ill of Belinda, a lady whom he himself had feduced in her youth, and betrayed into want and ignominy. To close his character, Timogenes, after having ruined feveral poor tradefmen's families who had trufted him, fold his eftate to fatisfy his creditors; but, like a man of ho of it, in paying off his play debts, or, to speak in his own language, his debts of honour. In the fecond place, we are to confider thofe, who have miftaken notions of honour. And thefe are fuch as eftablish any thing to them-nour, difpofed of all the money he could make felves for a point of honour, which is contrary either to the laws of God, or of their country; who think it more honourable to revenge, than to forgive an injury; who make no fcruple of telling a lye, but would put any man to death that accufes them of it; who are mere careful to guard their reputation by their courage than by their virtue. True fortitude indeed fo becoming in human nature, that he who wants it fearce deferves the name of a In the third place, we are to confider those perfons, who treat this principle as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule. Men who are profelfedly of no honour, are of a more profligate and abandoned nature than even those who are actuated by falfe notions of it; as there is more hope of an heretic than of an atheift. Thefe fons of infamy confider honour, with old old Syphax in the play before-mentioned, as a fine imaginary notion that leads aftray young unexperienced men, and draws them into real mifchiefs, while they are engaged in the purfuit of a fhadow. Thefe are generally perfons who, in Shakespear's phrase," are worn and hackneyed in the ways of men;" whofe imaginations are grown callous, and have loft all thofe delicate fentiments which are natural to rainds that are innocent and undepraved. Such old battered mifcreants ridicule every thing as romantic, that comes in competition with their prefent intereft; and treat thofe perfons as vifionaries, who dare to ftand up, in a corrupt age, for what has not its immediate reward joined to it. The talents, intereft, or experience of fuch men, make them very often ufeful in all parties, and at all times. But whatever wealth and dignities they may arrive at, they ought to confider, that every one ftands as a blot in the annals of his country, who arrives at the temple of honour by any other way than through that of virtue. § 40. On Modeftg. Guardian. I know no two words that have been more abuted by the different and wrong interpretations, which are put upon them, than thefe two, Modefty and Affurance. To fay fuch a one is a modeft man, fometimes indeed paffes for a good character; but at prefent is very often used to fignify a sheepish, aukward fellow, who has neither good-breeding, politenefs, nor any knowledge of the world. Again: A man of affurance, though at first it only denoted a perfon of a free and open carriage, is now very ufually applied to a profligate wretch, who can break through all the rules of decency and morality without a Bluth. I fhall endeavour, therefore, in this effay, to reftore these words to their true meaning, to prevent the idea of Modefty from being confounded with that of Sheepishness, and to hinder Impudence from paffing for Affurrance. If I was put to define Modefty, I would call it, The reflection of an ingenuous mind, either when a man has committed an action for which he cenfures himself, or fancies that he is expofed to the cenfure of others. For this reafon, a man, truly modeft, is as much fo when he is alone as in company; and as subject to a blush in his closet as when the eyes of multitudes are upon him. I do not remember to have met with any inftance of modesty with which I am fo well pleafed, as that celebrated one of the young Prince, whofe father, being a tributary king to the Romans, had feveral complaints laid against him before the fenate, as a tyrant and oppreffor of his fubjects. The Prince went to Rome to defend his father; but coming into the fenate, and hearing a multitude of crimes proved upon him, was fo oppreffed, when it came to his turn to fpeak, that he was unable to utter a word. The story tells us, that the fathers were more moved at this inftance of modefty and ingenuity, than they could have been by the most pathetic oration; and, in fhort, pardoned the guilty father for this early promife of virtue in the fon. I take Affurance to be, The faculty of poffeffing a man's felf, or of faying and doing indifferent things without any uneafinefs or emotion of the mind. That which generally gives a man affurance, is a moderate knowledge of the world; but above all, a mind fixed and determined in itself to do nothing against the rules of honour and decency. An open and affured behaviour is the natural confequence |