opinion, how praiseworthy soever they may appear to weak men of our own principles, produce infinite calamities among mankind, and are highly criminal in their own nature; and yet how many persons eminent for piety suffer such monstrous and absurd principles of action to take root in their minds under the colour of virtues? For my own part, I must own I never yet knew any party so just and reasonable that a man could follow it in its height and violence, and at the same time be innocent.

We should likewise be very apprehensive of those actions which proceed from natural constitution, favourite passions, particular education, or whatever promotes our worldly interest or advantage. In these and the like cases, a man's judgment is easily perverted, and a wrong bias hung upon his mind. These are the inlets of prejudice, the unguarded avenues of the mind, by which a thousand errors and secret faults find admission, without being observed or taken notice of A wise man will suspect those actions to which he is directed by something besides1 reason, and always apprehend' some concealed evil in every resolution that is of a disputable nature, when it is conformable to his particular temper, his age, or way of life, or when it favours his pleasure or his profit.

There is nothing of greater importance to us, than thus diligently to sift our thoughts, and examine all these dark recesses of the mind, if we would establish our souls in such a solid and substantial virtue, as will turn to account in that great day, when it must stand the test of infinite wisdom and justice.

I shall conclude this essay with observing, that the two kinds of hypocrisy I have here spoken of,

1 More than' (folio).

namely, that of deceiving the world, and that of imposing on ourselves, are touched with wonderful beauty in the hundred and thirty-ninth psalm. The folly of the first kind of hypocrisy is there set forth by reflections on God's omniscience and omnipresence, which are celebrated in as noble strains of poetry as any other I ever met with, either sacred or profane. The other kind of hypocrisy, whereby a man deceives himself, is intimated in the two last verses, where the Psalmist addresses himself to the great Searcher of hearts in that emphatical petition: 'Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart: prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'

No. 400.

Monday, June 9, 1712

L.

[STEELE.

Latet anguis in herba.—VIRG., Eclog. iii. 93.

T should, methinks, preserve modesty and its interests in the world, that the transgression of it always creates offence; and the very purposes of wantonness are defeated by a carriage which has in it so much boldness, as to intimate that fear and reluctance are quite extinguished in an object which would be otherwise desirable. It was said of a wit of the last age

1 Misprinted Sidney' in the 1713 collected edition.

Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Between declining virtue and desire,

That the poor vanquished maid dissolves away
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.1

This prevailing gentle art was made up of complaisance, courtship, and artful conformity to the modesty of a woman's manners. Rusticity, broad expression, and forward obtrusion, offend those of education, and make the transgressors odious to all who have merit enough to attract regard. It is in this taste that the scenery is so beautifully ordered in the description which Antony makes, in the dialogue between him and Dolabella, of Cleopatra in her barge.

Her galley down the silver Cydnos rowed;

The tackling silk, the streamers waved with gold;
The gentle winds were lodged in purple sails:

Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were placed,
Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay.

She lay, and leaned her cheek upon her hand,
And cast a look so languishingly sweet,
As if, secure of all beholders' hearts,

Neglecting she could take 'em. Boys like Cupids
Stood fanning with their painted wings the winds.
That played about her face; but if she smiled,
A darting glory seemed to blaze abroad,
That men's desiring eyes were never wearied,
But hung upon the object. To soft flutes

The silver oars kept time; and while they played,
The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight,
And both to thought- 2

Here the imagination is warmed with all the objects presented, and yet is there nothing that is luscious, or what raises any idea more loose than

1 Rochester's Allusion to the Tenth Satire of the First Book of Horace.'

2 Dryden's 'All for Love,' Act iii. sc. I.

that of a beautiful woman set off to advantage. The like, or a more delicate and careful spirit of modesty, appears in the following passage in one1 of Mr. Philips's pastorals:

Breathe soft ye winds, ye waters gently flow,

Shield her ye trees, ye flowers around her grow;
Ye swains, I beg you, pass in silence by,

My love in yonder vale asleep does lie.

Desire is corrected when there is a tenderness or admiration expressed which partakes the passion. Licentious language has something brutal in it, which disgraces humanity, and leaves us in the condition of the savages in the field. But it may be asked, to what good use can tend a discourse of this kind at all? It is to alarm chaste ears against such as have what is above called the prevailing gentle art. Masters of that talent are capable of clothing their thoughts in so soft a dress, and something so distant from the secret purpose of their heart, that the imagination of the unguarded is touched with a fondness which grows too insensibly to be resisted. Much care and concern for the lady's welfare, to seem afraid lest she should be annoyed by the very air which surrounds her, and this uttered rather with kind looks, and expressed by an interjection, an Ah! or Oh! at some little hazard in moving or making a step, than in any direct profession of love, are the methods of skilful admirers. They are honest arts when their purpose is such, but infamous when misapplied. It is certain that many a young woman in this town has had her heart irrecoverably won, by men who have not made one advance which ties their ad

1 The sixth Pastoral.

mirers, though the females languish with the utmost anxiety. I have often, by way of admonition to my female readers, given them warning against agreeable company of the other sex, except they are well acquainted with their characters. Women may disguise it if they think fit, and the more to do it, they may be angry at me for saying it; but I say it is natural to them, that they have no manner of approbation of men, without some degree of love. For this reason he is dangerous to be entertained as a friend or a visitant, who is capable of gaining any eminent esteem, or observation, though it be never so remote from pretensions as a lover. If a man's heart has not the abhorrence of any treacherous design, he may easily improve approbation into kindness, and kindness into passion. There may possibly be no manner of love between them in the eyes of all their acquaintance, no, it is all friendship; and yet they may be as fond as shepherd and shepherdesses in a pastoral, but still the nymph and the swain may be to each other no other, I warrant you, than Pylades and Orestes.

When Lucy decks with flowers her swelling breast,
And on her elbow leans, dissembling rest;

Unable to refrain my madding mind,
Nor sleep nor pasture worth my care I find.

Once Delia slept, on easy moss reclined,
Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind;
I smoothed her coats, and stole a silent kiss.
Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss.1

Such good offices as these, and such friendly thoughts and concerns for one another, are what

1 Two stanzas from different parts of Philips's sixth Pastoral.