concern so visible in the airs of one half of that great assembly should arise from nothing else, but that the other half of it may think them to be men of consequence, penetration, parts, and conduct? What a noise amongst the claimants about it! Behold humility, out of mere pride; and honesty, almost out of knavery; chastity, never once in harm's way; and courage, like a Spanish soldier upon an Italian stage, a bladder, full of wind. Hark! hark! the sound of that trumpet let not my soldier run, is some good, Christian giving alms. O pity! thou gentlest of human passions! soft and tender are thy notes, and ill accord they with so loud an instrument. CHAPTER LXI. AWKWARDNESS IN COMPANY. 1. WHEN an awkward fellow first comes into a room, he attempts to bow, and his sword, if he wears one, gets between his legs, and nearly throws him down. Confused and ashamed, he stumbles to the upper end of the room, and seats himself in the very place where he should not. He there begins playing with his hat, which he presently drops; and recovering his hat, he lets fall his cane; and, in picking up his cane, down goes his hat again. Thus, 'tis a considerable time before he is adjusted. 2. When his tea or coffee is handed to him, he spreads his handkerchief upon his knees, scalds his mouth, drops either the cup or saucer, and spills the tea or coffee in his lap. At dinner, he seats himself upon the edge of his chair, 2t so great a distance, from the table, that he frequently drops his meat between his plate and his mouth; he holds his knife, fork, and spoon, differently from other people ; eats with his knife to the manifest danger of his mouth; and picks his teeth with his fork. 3. If he is to carve he cannot hit the joint; but, in laboring to cut through the bone, splashes the sauce over every body's clothes. He generally daubs himself all over; his elbows are in the next person's plate; and he is up to the knuckles in soup and grease. If he drinks, 'tis with his mouth full, interrupting the whole company with, To your good health,Sir," and "My service to you;" perhaps coughs in his glass, and besprinkles the whole table. 4. He addresses the company by improper titles, as,Sir, for my Lord; mistakes one name for another; and tells you of Mr What d'ye call him, or you know who; Mrs. Who is't there, what's her name, or how d'ye call her he begins a story; but, not being able to finish it, breaks off in the middle, with, "I've forgot the rest." CHAPTER LXII.' A Description of the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius 1. THE Bay of Naples, surrounded by the most beau tiful scenery, exhibits an object beyond description. It is of a circular figure; in most places upwards of twenty miles in diameter; so that including all its breaks and irequalities, the circumference is more than sixty miles. The whole of this space is so wonderfully diversified, by all the riches both of art and nature, that there is scarce an object wanting to render it completely sublime. 2. It is difficult to determine, whether the view is more pleasing from the singularity of many of these objects, or from the incredible variety of the whole. You see an amazing mixture of the ancient and modern; some rising to fame, and some sinking to ruin. Palaces reared over the tops of other palaces; and ancient magnificence trampled under foot by modern folly. Mountains and islands, that were celebrated for their fertility, changed into barren wastes, and barren wastes into fertile fields and rich vineyards. 3. You see mountains sunk into plains, and plains swol len into mountains. Lakes drank up by volcanoes, and extinguished volcanoes turned into lakes. The earth still smoking in many places, and in others throwing out flames. In short, nature seems to have formed this coast in her most capricious mood; for every object is a lusus naturæ. She never seems to have gone seriously to work; but to have devoted this spot to the most unlimited indulgence of caprice and frolic. 4. The Bay is shut out from the Mediterranean by several famous islands and celebrated promontories, all lying a little west, exhibiting the finest scenery that can be imagined; the great and opulent city of Naples, with its three castles, its harbour full of ships from every nation, its palaces, churches, and convents innumerable. The rich country from thence to Portici, covered with noble houses and gardens, and appearing only a continuation of the city. The palace of the king, with many others surrounding it, all built over the roofs of those of Herculaneum,buried near a hundred feet by eruptions of Vesuvius. 5. You see Vesuvius itself in the back ground of the scene discharging volumes of fire and smoke, and forming a broad track in the air over our heads, extending without being broken or dissipated, to the utmost verge of the horizon; a variety of beautiful towns and villages round the base of the mountain, thoughtless of the impending ruin that daily threatens them. Next follows the extensive and romantic coast of Castello Mare, and Sorrentum, diversified with every picturesque object in nature. 6. It is strange that nature should make use of the same agent to create as to destroy; and that what has only been looked upon as the consumer of countries, is in fact the very power that produces them. Indeed this part of our earth seems to have already undergone the sentence pronounced upon the whole of it; but like the Phoenix, has risen again from its own ashes, in much greater beauty and splendor than before it was consumed. The traces of these dreadful conflagrations are still conspicuous in every corner; they have been violent in their. operations, but in the end have proved salutary in their effects. The fire in many places is not yet extinguished, but Vesuvius is now the only spot where it rages with any degree of activity. CHAPTER LXIII. ON HONOR. 1. THE influence of honor on the character and the improvement of the mind, is no less happy than that of virtue. As a virtuous man would not do a criminal action, because repugnant to the laws of God, and injurious to his neighbor; so would an honorable man despise a mercenary deed, because abhorrent to his feelings, and the genuine principles of rectitude The ideas many have. of honor, and of the means to attain it, are as different and perhaps as erroneous as those they have of true happiness. 2 Persons who entertain right conceptions of honor, enjoy a double advantage. Stimulated by its dictates, and Instructed by the precepts of virtue, they scorn whatesor is low, and aspire at what is amiable. Ambitious to gain the esteem of the world, the man of honor makes virtue his guide; his life is marked with integrity; his soul beams sincerity, and justice ever graces the tenor of his conduct. 3. Others who have wrong, or no ideas at all upon this subject, commit crimes of the vilest nature, and pretende to veil their guilt with the false notion that they are honorable vices, because they are called fashionable. Ask a dissipated man why he carouses at midnight revels, and riots in the luxuries of pleasure, he will answer," to maintain my honor and support the dignity of a gentleman" Is this honor and dignity? Such would better grace the gibbet, or the halter, than adorn the gentleman. 4. Ask the duellist, why he would take away the life of-perhaps a brother, he answers, "to vindicate my hon-or, and act the part of a man." Witness a Tymogenes, who run a young fellow through in a duel for speaking ill of Belinda,a young lady, whom he had himself brought to poverty and disgrace. Such is the force of custom, to convert the basest crimes into a fashionable point of hon or. Alas! Such may have becoine fashionable, but they will ever be contemptible. 5. Flattered by a false notion of honor, the voluptu- ary endeavours to exculpate the criminality of his con, Uncontroled by principles, he gives unbounded scope to his desires, and riots with intemperate festivity. Unacquainted with what is truly honorable, the duellist, for the most trivial offence, thus challenges his antago nist: Equip yourself with sword and pistol, meet me at: such a time and place, and prove yourself a GENTLEMAN.” His antagonist, if destitute of honor like himself, thus answers: "I accept your challenge with pleasure, and am happy to give you and the world this proof." 6. But, if his antagonist be endued with just and honorable principies, he thus replies: "Sensible what disgrace acompliance with your request would bring upon us both, and bumanity itself, I condemn your offer as derogatory to the human character. If in fault, I am willing to make every reasonable confession, and ready to give satisfaction." Thus each tries to conceal his respective crime, pretending such indulgencies are innocent, because fashionable. Should the moralist reprove, they disregard his admonitions, and ease their own consciences with the common phrase, it is honorable. 7. As the man of virtue fears, so the man of honor scorns to do a mean action. Seneca speaks in the noble and genuine language of honor, when he says, "Were there no God to see and punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and vile a nature." Should those persons who court vice and folly for pleasure, study decency, and cultivate true principles, they would soon discard those fashionable vices, which they vainly flatter themselves, accomplish the real man of honor. 8. The vices of the present age, like dress, have their fashions, Were we to inquire into the cause, should we not find, that many of them owe their rise to a mistaken notion of honor? Excess of pleasure, says the sensualist, is fashionable, consequently, honorable. But were he sensible that nothing but what is virtuous, is worthy of this name, that the principles of honor would teach him to ennoble his soul with conceptions of the just and amiable, he would forsake the lap of pleasure, for that of virtue. 9: Then let the debauchee quit his bottle and his lass the voluptuary the bed of pleasure; the duellist his dagger, for what is great, noble, and virtuous, and be persuaded that honor is the child of virtue, and the perfection of a benevolent and generous soul; "A sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind's distinguishing perfection, That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her, - CHAPTER LXIV. APPLAUSE. 1. IF we suppose that there are spirits, or angels, who look into the ways of men, as it is highly probable there are, both from reason and revelation, how different are the notions which they entertain of us, from those which we are apt to form of one another! Were they to give us in their catalogues of such worthies as are now living, |