of the evils of inexperience. Its nature and properties are accordingly frequently difcuffed, and the various kinds of pretended attachments, and difguifed felfifhnefs, traced to their fource, and exposed to contempt or ridicule. Such inftructions fupply a very neceffary branch of that knowledge of the world' which is generally purchafed at a much higher expence, and which men of loofe principles. tell us can never be acquired without an affociation with the idle and the profligate, and a proportionate facrifice of time and character. The fubject, however, has certainly been better understood fince the appearance of these works. The world is taught to diftinguish between the attachments of real friendfhip and the many disguises which pafs by the name. We now find fewer inftances of romantic friendship, of unreasonable expectations from beings fallible and various in temper, or of thofe ill-founded hopes which meeting with difappointment, introduce a fpecies of mifanthropy, and a diflike of life, merely because life cannot give more than it was intended to give. It must be confeffed indeed that modern novels, a fpecies of compofition unknown to our ESSAYISTS, have produced affectations of feeling and fenfibility that ftill require the chaftisement of an humorous pen: but they are feldom of long duration, and, like other kinds of vanity, difappear when they fail in attracting notice. All affectation is made for fhow; and is fomething in the drawing-room or the park, but nothing in the clofet.

Before the appearance of the ESSAYISTS, few moral writers had penetrated into DOMESTIC CIRCLES, but contented themfelves with general dif fuafives from the encouragement of the malevolent paffions. Pride, envy, and revenge, were juftly expofed, as pernicious to man and offenfive to the Deity. But these inftructors, as we have already

øbferved in other cafes, frequently failed to produce amendment, by being too general, and their works were not probably in many hands. The diftribution of popular inftruction, at ftated times and at easy rates, is that which diftinguishes the ESSAYISTS from all other writers, which has enabled them to go along with the age, and afforded them opportunities to fimplify their fubjects to the meaneft comprehenfion. The early ESSAYISTS alfo felected fpecific cafes, and applied them to the bufinefs and bofoms' of their readers; and fhewed, by apt examples, in how many cafes, envy, pride, and revenge, appear in the difguife of emulation, dignity, and juftice. No general declamation could familiarize these truths to common minds. It was neceffary to follow the reader to his closet, his counting-house, his family, and even to the pew and the altar. this extenfive range, topics of ridicule could never be wanting to men of fuch pregnant wit and turn for obfervation as the authors of the TATLER and SPECTATOR; and it will be found that the crimes or whims of pride, envy, and revenge, occupy no inconfiderable part of their lucubrations, and afford fome of the moft ftriking pictures of real life, and displays of genuine humour.

In

Connected with REVENGE, are the various phenomena of courage and cowardice, two qualities which, on certain occafions, form one of the grand divifions of mankind, but which are in general fo mixed and fhaded as to require great accuracy of diftinction. In feparating the merits of true courage from the glare of the falfe, and in recommending that only useful valour which gives a daring to the mind in defiance of the cuftom of the world, and the contempt of fools, our ESSAYISTs have earned their beft fame. If the cuftom of the world is in many cafes ftill too powerful, it is at leaft without excufe. Men may be precipitated into crimes by a falfe

notion of honour; but they do not affect to be without remorse, and have feldom infulted public decency by apologies or vindications h.

In furveying the manners of domeftic life, a very copious fund of ridicule is derived from obferving the various effects of a TASTE for EXPENSE and SHOW, arifing from a compliance, rather voluntary than compelled, with the mandares of fashion. This naturally induces the confideration of drefs, furniture, equipage, and the luxuries of the table; fubjects which do not court privacy, but obtrude themfelves with proud oftentation, and are therefore among the fairest game of the literary fportfman. At the commencement of the laft century the diftinction of ranks, it is believed, was more ftrictly obferved than it has been fince. The man of title or fortune, and the citizen, were characters effentially different: there was indeed fcarcely any point of refemblance. In the one appeared ftate, fplendour, fhow, a manly fpirit, and high fenfe of familyhonour, yet fometimes with notions rather gay and loofe; in the other, oeconomy, fnugnefs, integrity, and fome prejudices of pretty high antiquity. When, however, fuccefsful commerce afforded the latter the means, there foon appeared an affected imitation of the manners and expenfes of the great: and fuch imitations at firft could not fail to be ludicrous as well as pernicious, but they were not to be attacked only by serious argument. They were not always worthy of it; and it is perhaps as wholefome to fhew a man that he is vain, as to prove that vanity is a great folly. During the progrefs of this change in man

The papers on Duelling in the TATLER were written by STEELE, whofe thoughts are faid to have been turned towards that fubject in early life, when he was involved in a duel with a brother officer. See Tatler, No 25, and

notes.

hers, if an expenfe was fafhionable, that fanction was fufficient, and the fplendour and ftyle of a fuite of rooms were attempted in confined parlours and closets; entertainments in miniature were given in fuch camera obfcura to perfons who would only laugh at the folly of the hoft; while the youth of both fexes began to be trained up with notions of high life, which, by deftroying induftry and perverting the use of wealth, foon left them in a motley beggary with an outfide fhow neither fplendid nor fqualid. Yet thefe examples of high life below ftairs' were not perhaps fo frequent in the days of STEELE and ADDISON as they have become in our time, in which a different ftate of society has fhewn how very prolific pride and vanity are in grotefque appearances and expenfive anomalies: ftill they occurred with frequency fufficient to afford thofe wits opportunities of expofing them to juft ridicule, as well as of pointing out the more fatal effects of ftepping out of the rank in which education and circumftances have placed us.

GAMING in all its varieties had attained, in the days of the TATLER, a perfection, if we may fo term it, not inferior to what fo eminently distinguishes and difhonours the prefent times. The mifchiefs arifing from this vice alone are acknowledged greatly to exceed what can be attributed to any other caufe. Yet to the present moment the young of all ranks are early initiated in the fcience of play, and with no other check than a hope, fometimes cafually expreffed, that what is intended for amufement may not become their more ferious ftudy. Perhaps one of the most fatal effects which gaming, even in its leaft degrees, has produced on the public mind, is

i When Plato reproved a young man for playing at dice. What! for fuch a trifle of money? CUSTOM, anfwered Plato, is no trifle.'

the diftinction made between honour and honefty, and the confequent opinion that a debt contracted at the card-table is more obligatory than one contracted in trade. Few principles will appear more deteftable than this, if it be fairly examined; and the MAN of HONOUR, who has no other claim to the title than what arifes from his punctual obfervation of fuch a precept, ought not to complain if that too be taken from him by the verdict of religion, law, and integrity.

Many of the TATLERS were very laudably employed in detecting the arts of gamblers and fharpers; fome at leaft of whom were real and well-known characters. In this STEELE acted wifely, in his character of CENSOR MORUM, and performed a duty which, we are told, was not always unattended with perfonal danger. Characters like thefe are at all times the legitimate objects of fatire; but to what extent it is really useful to expose them, cannot be fo eafily ascertained. No character is confidered fo impious, or immoral, as that of him who ftudies to accumulate the unavoidable miferies of life, to precipitate adverfity, and bring on immature deftruction. Yet men who have thus hardened their hearts against all moral principles, who defpife the laws of all civilized nations, and are the common robbers of the young and unfufpecting, men who know themfelves to be profcribed, and glory in an exemption which leaves them unreftrained by fhame or pride, may be fuppofed beyond the reach of wit or argument. To the world, however, it is ftill neceffary that they should be expofed in their full depravity. It is a duty which the moralift and the wit owe to fociety. Such crimes are the legitimate objects of afperity and contempt. Ridicule will not perhaps reform the vicious; but it may ftrengthen the principles of the virtuous, by making them afraid to incur the contempt which they know to be juft,