[1]

DIALOGUE I.

On SINCERITY in the Commerce of the World.

DR. HENRY MORE, EDMUND WALLER, ESQ.

EN

MR. WALLER.

NOUGH, enough, my friend, on the good old chapter of Sincerity and Honour. Your rhetoric, and not your reasoning, is too much for me. Believe it, your fine ftoical leffons must all give way to a little common fenfe, I mean, to a prudent accommodation of ourselves to times and circumftances; which, whether you will dignify it with the name of philosophy, or no, is the only method of living with credit in the world, and even with fafety.

VOL. I.

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DR.

DR. MORE.

ACCOMMODATION is, no doubt, a good word to ftand in the place of infincerity. But, pray, in which of the great moral masters have you picked up this term, and much more, the virtuous practice, it fo well expreffes?

MR. WALLER.

I LEARNT it from the great mafter of life, EXPERIENCE: A doctor, little heard of in the fchools, but of more authority with men of fenfe, than all the folemn talkers of the porch, or cloifter, put together.

DR. MORE.

AFTER much reserve, I confefs, you begin to express yourself very clearly. But, good Sir, not to take up your conclufion too haftily, have the patience to hear

MR. WALLER.

HAVE I not, then, heard, and fure with patience enough, your ftudied harangues

rangues on this fubject? You have dif courfed it, I must own, very plaufibly. But the impreffion, which fine words make, is one thing, and the conviction of reason, another. And, not to waste more time in fruitlefs altercation, let ME, if you please, read you a lecture of morals: not, out of ancient books, or the vifions of an unpractifed philofophy, but from the schools of bufinefs and real life. Such a view of things will difcredit these high notions, and may serve, for the future, to amend and rectify all your fyftems.

DR. MORE.

COMMEND me to a man of the world, for a rectifier of moral fyftems!-Yet, if it were only for the pleasure of being let into the fecrets of this new doctrine of Accommodation, I am content to become a patient hearer, in my turn; and the rather, as the day, which, you fee, wears apace, will hardly give leave for interruption,

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ruption, or indeed afford you time enough for the full difplay of your wit on this extraordinary subject.

MR. WALLER.

We have day enough before us, for the business in hand. 'Tis true, this wood land walk has not the charms, which you lately bestowed on a certain philofophical garden [a]. But the heavens are as clear, and the air, that blows upon us, as fresh, as in that fine evening which drew your friends abroad, and engaged them in a longer debate, than that with which I am now likely to detain you. For, indeed, I have only to lay before you the refult of my own experience and obfervation. All my arguments are plain facts, which are foon told, and about which there can be no difpute. You fhall judge for yourself, how far they

[a] The scene of Dr. MORE'S DIVINE DIALOGUES, printed in 1668.

will

THE POINT, I am bold enough to maintain against you philosophers is, briefly, this; "That fincerity, or a scrupulous "regard to truth in all our conversation ❝and behaviour, how fpecious foever it <6 may be in theory, is a thing impoffible "in practice; that there is no living, in "the world on thefe terms; and that a "man of business must either quit the

fcene, or learn to temper the strictness "of your difcipline with fome reason"able accommodations. It is exactly "the dilemma of the poet,

"Vivere fi recte nefcis, difcede peritis;

"of all which I prefume, as I said, to "offer my own experience, as the fhort"eft and most convincing demonstration."

DR. MORE..

THE fubject, I confefs, is fairly deli vered, and nothing can be juster than B 3

this