3. It is on few, only, and great occasions, that men deliberate at all; on fewer still, that they institute any thing like a regular inquiry into the moral rectitude or depravity of what they are about to do; or wait for the result of it. We are for the most part determined at once; and by an impulse, which is the effect and energy of pre-established habits. And this constitution seems well adapted to the exigencies of human life, and to the imbecility of our moral principles.

4. If we are in so great a degree passive under our habits, where, it is asked, is the exercise of virtue, the guilt of vice, or any use of moral and religious knowledge? I answer, in the forming and contracting of these habits. There are habits, not only of drinking, swearing, and lying, and of some other things which are commonly acknowledged to be habits, and called so, but of every modification of action, speech, and thought. Man is a bundle of habits.

5. Without entering into a detail of scripture morality, which would anticipate our subject, the following general positions may be advanced, I think, with safety: 1. That a state of happiness is not to be expected by those who are conscious of no moral or religious rule. 2. That a state of happiness is not to be expected by those who reserve to themselves the habitual practice of any one sin, or neglect of one known duty.

LESSON CXV.

On Dignity of Manners.

1. There is a certain dignity of manners absolutely necessary, to make ever the most valuable character either respected or respectable.

2. Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else dubs you their dependant, and led captain. It gives your inferiors, just, but troublesome and improper claims of equality. A joker

is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit.

3. Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there, but only made use of. We will have such-a-one, for he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for he dances well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another, because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal.

4. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whosoever is bad, (as it is called) in company, for the sake of one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will never be considered in any other light; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.

5. This dignity of manners, which I recommend so much to you, is not only as different from pride, as true courage is from blustering, or true wit from joking; but is absolutely inconsistent with it; for nothing vilifies and degrades more than pride. The pretensions of the proud man, are oftener treated with sneer and contempt than with indignation, as we offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman, who asks ridiculously too much for his goods; but we do not hesitate with one who asks a just and reasonable price.

6. Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people's, preserve dignity.

7. Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify, as they imply either a low turn of mind, or a low education, and low company.

Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and a laborious attention to little objects, which neither require nor deserve a moment's thought, lower a man; who from thence is thought (and not unjustly) incapable of great matters. Cardinal de Retz, very sagaciously, marked out Cardinal Chigi for a little mind, from the moment that he told him he had wrote three years with the same pen, and that it was an excellent good one still.

8. A certain degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions, gives dignity, without excluding wit and decent

A

cheerfulness, which are always serious themselves. constant smirk upon the face, and a whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of futility. Whoever is in a hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and hurry are very different things. CHESTERFIELD.

LESSON CXVI.

Demosthenes and Cicero Compared.

1. These are the most memorable circumstances in the lives of Demosthenes and Cicero that could be collected from the historians which have come to our knowledge. Though I shall not pretend to compare their talents for speaking; yet this, I think, I ought to observe, that Demosthenes, by the exertion of all his powers, both natural and acquired, upon that object only, came to exceed in energy and strength, the most celebrated pleaders of his time; in grandeur and magnificence of style, all that were eminent for the sublime of declamation; and in accuracy and art, the most able professors of rhetoric.

2. Cicero's studies were more general; and, in his treasures of knowledge, he had a great variety. He has left us a number of philosophical tracts, which he composed upon the principles of the academy. And we see something of an ostentation of learning in the very orations which he wrote for the forum, and the bar.

3. Their different tempers are discernible in their way of writing. That of Demosthenes, without any embellishments of wit and humour, is always grave and serious. Nor does it smell of the lamp, as Pytheas tauntingly said, but of the water-drinker, of the man of thought, of one who was characterized by the austerities of life. But Cicero, who loved to indulge his vein of pleasantry, so much affected the wit that he sometimes sunk into the buffoon; and by affecting gaiety in the most serious things to serve his client, he has offended against the rules of propriety and decorum.

4. When Cato impeached Murena, Cicero, who was then consul, undertook his defence; and, in his pleading, took occasion to ridicule several paradoxes of the stoics, because

Cato was of that sect. He succeeded so far as to raise a laugh in the assembly; and even among the judges. Upon which Cato smiled, and said to those who sat by him, “What a pleasant consul we have!" Cicero, indeed, was naturally facetious; and he not only loved his jest, but his countenance was gay and smiling. Whereas Demosthenes had a care and thoughtfulness in his aspect, which he seldom or never put off. Hence his enemies, as he confesses, called him a morose ill natured man.

5. It appears also from their writings, that Demosthenes, when he touches upon his own praise, does it with an inoffensive delicacy. Indeed, he never gives into it at all, but when he has some great point in view; and on all other occasions is extremely modest. But Cicero, in his orations, speaks in such high terms of himself, that it is plain he had a most intemperate vanity. Thus he cries out:

Let rms revere the robe, the warrior's laurel

Yield to the palm of eloquence.

6. At length, he came to commend not only his own actions and operations in the commonwealth, but his orations too, as well those which he had only pronounced as those he had committed to writing, as if, with a juvenile vanity, he were vying with the rhetoricians Isocrates and Anaximenes, instead of being inspired with the great ambition of guiding the Roman people;

Fierce in the field, and dreadful to the foe.

7. It is necessary, indeed, for a statesman to have the advantage of eloquence; but it is mean and illiberal to rest in such a qualification, or to hunt after praise in that quarter. In this respect Demosthenes behaved with more dignity, with a superior elevation of soul. He said, "His ability to explain himself was a mere acquisition; and not so perfect but that it required great candour and indulgence in the audience." He thought it must be, as indeed it is, only a low and little mind, that can value itself upon such attain

ments.

LESSON CXVII.

The same continued.

1. They both, undoubtedly, had political abilities, as well as powers to persuade. They had them in such a degree, that men, who had armies at their devotion, stood in need of their support. Thus Chares, Diopithes, and Leosthenes availed themselves of Demosthenes; Pompey and young Cæsar, of Cicero; as Cæsar himself acknowledges in his commentaries addressed to Agrippa and Mæ

cenas.

2. It is an observation no less just than common, that nothing makes so thorough a' trial of a man's disposition, as power and authority: for they awake every passion, and discover every latent vice. Demosthenes never had an opportunity for a trial of this kind. He never obtained any eminent charge; nor did he lead those armies against Philip, which his eloquence had raised.

3. But Cicero went quæstor into Sicily, and proconsul into Silicia and Cappadocia; at a time, too, when avarice reigned without control; when the governors of provinces, thinking it beneath them to take a clandestine advantage, fell to open plunder; when to take another's property was thought no great crime, and he who took moderately passed for a man of character.

4. Yet, at such a time as this, Cicero gave many proofs of his contempt of money; many of his humanity and goodness. At Rome, with the title only of consul, he had an absolute and dictatorial power against Cataline and his accomplices. On which occasion he verified the prediction of Plato. "That every state will be delivered from its calamities, when, by the favour of fortune, great power unites with wisdom and justice in one person.'

5. It is mentioned, to the disgrace of Demosthenes, that his eloquence was mercenary, that he privately composed orations both for Phormio and Apollodorus, though adversaries in the same cause. To which we may add, that he was suspected of receiving money from the king of Persia, and condemned for taking bribes of Harpalus. Supposing some of these the calumnies of those who wrote against him (and they are not a few), yet it is impossible to affirm that