: rence, and all the adjustments of place and precedence. Thefe, however, may be often violated without offence, if it be fufficiently evident, that neither malice nor pride contributed to the failure; but will not atone, however rigidly observed, for the tumour of infolence, or petulance of contempt. I have, indeed, not found among any part of mankind, less real and rational complaifance, than among those who have paffed their time in paying and receiving vifits, in frequenting public entertainments, in ftudying the exact measures of ceremony, and in watching all the variations of fashionable courtesy. They know, indeed, at what hour they may, beat the door of an acquaintance, how many steps they must attend him towards the gate, and what interval fhould pass before his vifit is returned; but feldom extend their care beyond the exterior and uneffential parts of civility, nor refuse their own vanity any gratification, however expenfive to the quiet of another. Trypherus is a man remarkable for fplendour and expence; a man, that having been originally placed by his fortune and rank in the firft clafs of the community, has acquired that air of dignity, and that readiness in the exchange of compliments, which courts, balls, and levees, eafily confer. But Trypherus, without any fettled purposes of malignity, partly by his ignorance of human nature, and partly by the habit of contemplating with great fatisfaction his own grandeur and riches, is hourly giving difguft to those whom chance or expectation subject to his vanity. To a man whose fortune confines him to a small houfe, he declaims upon the pleasure of fpacious apartments, and the convenience of changing his lodging-room in different parts of the year; tells him, that he hates confinement; and concludes, that if his chamber was lefs, he fhould never wake without thinking of a prison. To Eucretas, a man of birth equal to himself, but of much less estate, he fhewed his fervices of plate, and remarked that fuch things were, indeed, nothing better than coftly trifles, but that no man must pretend to the rank of a gentleman without them; and that for his part, if his eftate was fmaller, he should not think of enjoying but increafing it, and would inquire out a trade for his eldest fon. He has, in imitation of fome more acute observer than himself, collected a great many shifts and artifices by which poverty is concealed; and among the ladies of small fortune, never fails to talk of frippery and flight filks, and the convenience of a general mourning. I have been infulted a thousand times with a catalogue of his pictures, his jewels, and his rarities, which, though he knows the humble neatness of my habitation, he feldom fails to conclude by s declaration, that wherever he fees a houfe meanly furnished, he despises the owner's taste, or pities his poverty. This, Mr. Rambler, is the practice of Trypherus, by which he is become the terrour of all who are are lefs wealthy than himself, and has raised innumerable enemies without rivalry, and without malevolence. Yet though all are not equally culpable with Trypherus, it is scarcely poffible to find any man who does not frequently, like him, indulge his own pride by forcing others into a comparison with himself when he knows the advantage is on his fide, without confidering that unneceffarily to obtrude unpleafing ideas, is a fpecies of oppreffion; and that it is little more criminal to deprive another of fome real advantage, than to interrupt that forgetfulness of its absence which is the next happiness to actual poffeffion. NUMB. 99. TUESDAY, February 26, 1751. IT Scilicet ingeniis aliqua eft concordia junЯis, Et fervat ftudii fœdera quifque fui, Congenial paffions fouls together bind, OVID. F. LEWIS. T has been ordained by providence, for the confervation of order in the immense variety of nature, and for the regular propagation of the several claffes of life with which the elements are peopled, that every creature fhould be drawn by fome fecret attraction to those of his own kind; and that not only the gentle and domeftick animals which naturally unite into companies, or cohabit by pairs, fhould continue faithful to their fpecies; but even those ravenous and ferocious favages which Ariftotle observes never to be gregarious, should range mountains and deferts in fearch of one another, rather than pollute the world with a monstrous birth. As the perpetuity and diftinction of the lower tribes of the creation require that they fhould be determined to proper mates by fome uniform motive of choice, or fome cogent principle of inftinct; it is neceffary likewise, that man, whose wider capacity demands more gratifications, and who feels in himself innumerable wants, which a life of folitude cannot cannot fupply, and innumerable powers to which it cannot give employment, fhould be led to fuitable companions by particular influence; and among many beings of the fame nature with himself, he may felect fome for intimacy and tenderness, and improve the condition of his existence, by fuperadding friendfhip to humanity, and the love of individuals to that of the fpecies. Others animals are fo formed, that they feem to contribute very little to the happiness of each other, and know neither joy, nor grief, nor love, nor hatred, but as they are urged by fome defire immediately fubfervient either to the fupport of their own lives, or to the continuation of their race; they therefore feldom appear to regard any of the minuter difcriminations which diftinguifh creatures of the fame kind from one another. But if man were to feel no incentives to kindness, more than his general tendency to congenial nature, Babylon or London, with all their multitudes, would have to him the defolation of a wilderness; his affections, not compreffed into a narrower compass, would vanish like elemental fire, in boundless evaporation; he would languifh in perpetual infenfibility, and though he might, perhaps, in the first vigour of youth, amuse himself with the fresh enjoyments of life, yet, when curiofity fhould cease, and alacrity fubfide, he would abandon himself to the fluctuations of chance, without expecting help against any calamity, or feeling any wifh for the happiness of others. To love all men is our duty, fo far as it includes a general habit of benevolence, and readiness of occafional N 2 |