But notwithstanding an excefs of modefty obftructs the tongue, and renders it unfit for its offices, a due proportion of it is thought fo requifite to an orator, that rhetoricians have recommended it to their difciples as a particular in their art. Cicero tells us that he never liked an orator, who did not appear in fome little confufion at the beginning of his fpeech, and confeffes that he himself never entered upon an oration without trembling and concern. It is indeed a kind of deference which is due to a great affembly, and feldom fails to raise a benevolence in the audience towards the perfon who fpeaks. My correfpondent has taken notice that the braveft men often appear timorous on these occafions, as indeed we may observe, that there is generally ro creature more impudent than a coward.

-Bold at the council-board;

But cautious in the field, he fhunn'd the sword.

DRYDEN.

A bold tongue and a feeble arm are the qualifications of Drances in Virgil; as Homer, to exprefs a man both timorous and faucy, makes ufe of a kind of point, which is very rarely to be met with in his writings; ly, that he had the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a deer.

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A juft and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but fets off every great talent which a man can be poffeffed of. It heightens all the virtues which it accompanies; like the fhades in painting, it raises and rounds every figure, and makes the colours more beautiful, though not fo glaring as they would be without it.

Modefty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue. It is a kind of quick and delicate feeling in the foul, which makes her fhrink and withdraw herself from every thing that has danger in it. It is fuch an exquifite fenfibility, as warns her to fhun the first appearance of every thing which is hurtful.

I cannot at prefent recollect either the place or time of what I am going to mention; but I have read fomewhere in the hiftory of ancient Greece, that the women of the country were feized with an unaccountable VOL. III. L

melancholy, which difpofed feveral of them to make away with themselves. The fenate, after having tried many expedients to prevent this felf-murder, which was fo frequent among them, published an edict, that if any woman whatever fhould lay violent hands upon herself, her corps fhould be exposed naked in the ftreet, and dragged about the city in the moft public manner. This edict immediately put a stop to the practice which was before fo common. We may fee in this inftance the ftrength of female modefty, which was able to overcome the violence even of madness and defpair. The fear of fhame in the fair fex, was in those days more prevalent than that of death.

If modefty has fo great an influence over our actions, and is in many cafes fo impregnable a fence to virtue; what can more undermine morality than that politeness which reigns among the unthinking part of mankind, and treats as unfashionable the moft ingenuous part of our behaviour; which recommends impudence as good breeding, and keeps a man always in countenance, not because he is innocent, but because he is shameless?

Seneca thought modefty fo great a check to vice, that he prescribes to us the practice of it in fecret, and advises us to raise it in ourselves upon imaginary occafions, when fuch as are real do not offer themselves; for this is the meaning of his precept, that when we are by ourfelves, and in our greateft folitudes, we fhould fancy that Cato ftands before us and fees every thing we do. In fhort, if you banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.

After thefe reflections on modefty, as it is a virtue; 1 muft obferve, that there is a vicious modefty, which justly deferves to be ridiculed, and which thofe perfons very often difcover, who value themselves most upon a well-bred confidence. This happens when a man is afhamed to act up to his reafon, and would not upon any confideration be surprised in the practice of those duties, for the performance of which he was fent into the world. Many an impudent libertine would blush to be caught in a ferious difcourfe, and would scarce be able to fhew his head, after having difclofed a religious thought. Decency of behaviour, all outward fhow

of virtue, and abhorrence of vice, are carefully avoided by this set of shame-faced people, as what would difparage their gaiety of temper, and infallibly bring them to difhonour. This is fuch a poornefs of fpirit, fuch a defpicable cowardice, fuch a degenerate abject ftate of mind, as one would think human nature incapable of, did we not meet with frequent inftances of it in ordinary conversation.

There is another kind of vicious modefty which makes a man ashamed of his perfon, his birth, his profeffion, his poverty, or the like misfortunes, which it was not in his choice to prevent, and is not in his power to rectify. If a man appears ridiculous by any of the aforementioned circumftances, he becomes much more fo by being out of countenance for them. They fhould rather give him occafion to exert a noble spirit, and to palliate thofe imperfections which are not in his power, by thofe perfections which are; or, to ufe a very witty allufion of an eminent author, he should imitate Cæfar, who, because his head was bald, covered that defect with laurels. C.

N° 232.

Monday, November 26.

Nihil largiundo gloriam adeptus eft.

By bestowing nothing he acquired glory.

SALLUST.

LY wife and good friend, fir ANDREW FREEPORT, divides himself almoft equally between the town and the country: his time in town is given up to the public, and the management of his private fortune; and after every three or four days fpent in this manner, he retires for as many to his feat within a few miles of the town, to the enjoyment of himself, his family, and his friend. Thus bufines and pleasure, or rather, in fir ANDREW, labour and reft, recommend each other. They take their turns with fo quick a viciffitude, that neither becomes a habit, or takes poffeffion of the whole man; nor is it poffible

N° 232. he fhould be furfeited with either. I often see him at our club in good humour, and yet fometimes too with an air of care in his looks: but in his country retreat he is always unbent, and fuch a companion as I could defire; and therefore I feldom fail to make one with him when he is pleased to invite me.

The other day, as foon as we were got into his chariot, two or three beggars on each fide hung upon the doors, and folicited our charity with the usual rhetoric of a fick wife or husband at home, three or four helplefs little children, all ftarving with cold and hunger. We were forced to part with fome money to get rid of their importunity; and then we proceeded on our journey with the bleffings and acclamations of these people. "Well then," fays fir ANDREW, we go off with the prayers and good wishes of the beggars, and perhaps too our healths will be drunk at the next alehouse : "fo all we fhall be able to value ourselves upon, is, "that we have promoted the trade of the victualler and "the excifes of the government. But how few ounces "of wool do we fee on the backs of these poor creatures? And when they fhall next fall in our way, "they will hardly be better dreffed; they must always "live in rags to look like objects of compaflion. If "their families too are fuch as they are reprefented, it "is certain they cannot be better clothed, and muft be

a great deal worfe fed one would think potatoes "fhould be all their bread, and their drink the pure "element; and then what goodly cuftomers are the "farmers like to have for their wool, corn, and cattle ? "fuch customers, and fuch a confumption, cannot "choose but advance the landed intereft, and hold up the rents of the gentlemen.

"But of all men living, we merchants, who live by buying and felling, ought never to encourage beg66 gars. The goods which we export are indeed the pro"duct of the lands, but much the greateft part of their "value is the labour of the people: but how much of "these people's labour fhall we export whilft we hire "them to fit ftill? The very alins they receive from us, are the wages of idleness. I have often thought "that no man fhould be permitted to take relief from

"the parish, or to ask it in the street, until he has first

purchased as much as poffible of his own livelihood by "the labour of his own hands; and then the public "ought only to be taxed to make good the deficiency. "If this rule was ftrictly observed, we fhould fee every "where fuch a multitude of new labourers, as would "in all probability reduce the prices of all our manu"factures. It is the very life of merchandize to buy

cheap and fell dear. The merchant ought to make "his out-fet as cheap as poffible, that he may find the greater profit upon his returns; and nothing will "enable him to do this like the reduction of the price "of labour upon all our manufactures. This too would "be the ready way to increase the number of our foreign "markets: the abatement of the price of the manu"facture would pay for the carriage of it to more "diftant countries; and this confequence would be

equally beneficial both to the landed and trading in"terefts. As fo great an addition of labouring hands "would produce this happy confequence both to the "merchant and the gentleman; our liberality to com

mon beggars, and every other obftruction to the in"crease of labourers, muft be equally pernicious to both."

Sir ANDREW then went on to affirm, that the reduction of the prices of our manufactures by the addition of fo many new hands, would be no inconvenience to any man: but obferving I was fomething ftartled at the affertion, he made a fhort paufe, and then refumed the difcourfe." It may feem," fays he, "a paradox, that the "price of labour should be reduced without an abate"ment of wages, or that wages can be abated without

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any inconvenience to the labourer, and yet nothing "is more certain than that both these things may happen. "The wages of the labourers make the greate& part "of the price of every thing that is useful; and if in "proportion with the wages the prices of all other things fhould be abated, every labourer with lets wages would ftill be able to purchase as many necef"faries of life; where then would be the inconvenience? But the price of labour may be reduced by the " addition of more hands to a manufacture, and yet "the wages of perfons remain as high as ever. The

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