< not upon fo foon only because I think her handfome. I dare this occafion laugh; but though I am one of the warmest churchmen in the kingdom, I am forced to rail at the times, because fhe is a violent whig. Upon this we talk politics fo long, that she is convinced I kifs her for her wifdom. It is a common practice 'with me to afk her fome queftion concerning the conftitution, which she answers me in general out of Harrington's Oceana: then I commend her ftrange memory, and her arm is immediately locked in mine. While I keep her in this temper the plays before me, fometimes dancing in the midft of the room, fometimes ftriking an air at her fpinnet, varying her pofture and 'her charms in fuch a manner that I am in continual pleafure: fhe will play the fool, if I allow her to be wife; but if fhe fufpects I like her for her trifling, fhe immediately grows grave. ་ ་ Thefe are the toils in which I am taken, and I carry off my fervitude as well as moft men ; but my appli⚫cation to you is in behalf of the hen-peckt in general, and I defire a differtation from you in defence of us. You have, as I am informed, very good authorities in our favour, and hope you will not omit the mention of the renowned Socrates, and his philofophic refignation to his wife Xantippe. This would be a very good office to the world in general, for the hen-peckt are powerful in their quality and numbers, not only in ci'ties but in courts; in the latter they are ever the most obfequious, in the former the moft wealthy of all men. • When you have confidered wedlock thoroughly, you ought to enter into the fuburbs of matrimony, and give us an account of the thraldom of kind keepers, and ir⚫ refolute lovers; the keepers who cannot quit their fair ones, though they fee their approaching ruin; the lovers who dare not marry, though they know they never shall be happy without the miftreffes whom they cannot purchase on other terms. ་ · What will be a great embellishment to your difcourse, will be, that you may find inftances of the haughty, the proud, the frolic, the stubborn, who are each of them in fecret downright flaves to their ' wives or mistreffes. I must beg of you in the lit place ་ < to dwell upon this, that the wife and valiant in all ages have been hen-peckt: and that the sturdy tem· pers who are not flaves to affection, owe that exemption to their being inthralled by ambition, avarice, or fome meaner paffion. I have ten thousand thoufand things more to fay, but my wife fees me writing, and will, according to cuftom, be confulted, if I do not feal this immediately. T. ❝ Yours, NATHANIEL HENROOST.' N° 177. Saturday, September 22. Quis enim bonus, aut face dignus Is but a brute, at beft, in human shape. TATE. IN one of my laft week's papers I treated of good None nature, as it is the effect of constitution; I fhall now fpeak of it as it is a moral virtue. The firft may makea man eafy in himself and agreeable to others, but implies no merit in him that is poffeffed of it. A man is no more to be praised upon this account, than because he has a regular pulfe or a good digeftion. This goodnature however in the conftitution, which Mr. Dryden fomewhere calls a milkiness of blood," is an admirable ground-work for the other. In order therefore to try our good-nature, whether it arifes from the body or the mind, whether it be founded in the animal or rational part of our nature; in a word, whether it be fuch as is intitled to any other reward, befides that fecret fatisfaction and contentment of mind which is effential to it, and the kind reception it procures us in the world, we muft examine it by the following rules. T First, whether it acts with steadiness and uniformity in ficknefs and in health, in profperity and in adverfity; if otherwife, it is to be looked upon as nothing else but an irradiation of the mind from fome new fupply of fpirits, or a more kindly circulation of the blood. Sir Francis Bacon mentions a cunning folicitor, who would never afk a favour of a great man before dinner; but took care to prefer his petition at a time when the party petitioned had his mind free from care, and his appetites in good-humour. Such a tranfient temporary good-nature as this, is not that philanthropy, that love of mankind, which deferves the title of a moral virtue. The next way of a man's bringing his good-nature to the teft, is, to confider whether operates according to the rules of reafon and duty for if, notwithstanding its general benevolence to mankind, it makes no diftinction between its objects, if it exerts itself promifcuoufly towards the deferving and undeferving, if it relieves alike the idle and the indigent, if it gives itself up to the first petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by accident than choice, it may pafs for an amiable inftin&t, but muft not affume the name of a moral virtue. :: The third trial of good-nature will be, the examining ourselves, whether or no we are able to exert it to our own difadvantage, and employ it on proper objects, nowithstanding any little pain, want, or inconvenience which may arife to ourselves from it in a word, whether we are willing to rifk any part of our fortune, our reputation, or health or eafe, for the benefit of mankind. Among all thefe expreffions of good-nature, Ifhall fingle out that which goes under the general name of charity, as it confifts in relieving the indigent; that being a trial of this kind which offers itself to us almoft at all times and in every place. I should propose it as a rule to every one who is provided with any competency of fortune more than fufficient for the neceffaries of life, to lay afide a certain proportion of his income for the ufe of the poor. This I would look upon as an offering to him who has a right to the whole, for the use of those whom, in the paffage hereafter mentioned, he has defcribed as his own reprefentatives upon earth. At the fame time we fhould manage our charity with fuch prudence and caution, that we may not hurt our own friends or relations,, whilft we are doing good to those who are strangers to us.. This may poffibly be explained better by an example than by a rule. Eugenius is a man of an univerfal good-nature, and generous beyond the extent of his fortune; but withal fo prudent, in the economy of his affairs, that what goes out in charity is made up by good management. Eugenius has what the world calls two hundred pounds a year; but never values himself above ninescore, as not thinking he has a right to the tenth part, which he always appropriates to charitable uses. To this fum he frequently makes other voluntary additions, infomuch that in a good year, for fuch he accounts those in which he has been able to make greater bounties than ordinary, he has given above twice that fum to the fickly and indigent. Eugenius prefcribes to himself many particular days of fafting and abftinence, in order to increafe his private bank of charity, and fets afide what would be the current expences of thofe times for the ufe of the poor. He often goes afoot where his business calls hin, and at the end of his walk has given a fhilling, which in his ordinary methods of expence would have gone for a coachhire, to the first neceffitous person that has fallen in his way. I have known him, when he has been going to a play or an opera, divert the money which was defigned for that purpofe, upon an object of charity whom he has met with in the ftreet; and afterwards país his evening in a coffee-house, or at a friend's fire-fide, with much greater fatisfaction to himself than he could have received from the most exquifite entertainments of the theatre. By thefe means he is generous, without impoverishing himfelf, and enjoys his eftate by making it the property of others. There are few men fo cramped in their private affairs, who may not be charitable after this manner, without any difadvantage to themselves, or prejudice to their families. It is but fometimes facrificing a diverfion or convenience to the poor, and turning the ufual courfe of our expences into a better channel. This is, I think, not only the most prudent and convenient, but the most meritorious piece of charity, which we can put in practice. By this method we in fome measure share the neceffities of the poor at the fame time that we relieve them, and make ourselves not only their patrons, but their fellow-fufferers. Sir Thomas Brown, in the last part of his Religio Medici, in which he defcribes his charity in feveral heroic inftances, and with a noble heat of fentiments, mentions that verfe in the proverbs of Solomon, "He that giveth "to the poor, lendeth to the Lord:" There is more ⚫ rhetoric in that one fentence, fays he, than in a library ⚫ of fermons ; and indeed if those sentences were under• stood by the reader, with the fame emphasis as they are delivered by the author, we needed not those ⚫ volumes of instructions, but might be honest by an • epitome.' This paffage in fcripture is indeed wonderfully perfuafive; but I think the fame thought is carried much farther in the New Teftament, where our Saviour tells us in the most pathetic manner, that he fhall hereafter regard the clothing of the naked, the feeding of the hungry, and the vifiting of the imprifoned, as offices done to himself, and reward them accordingly. Purfuant to thofe paffages in holy fcripture, I have fomewhere met with the epitaph of a charitable man, which has very much pleased me. I cannot recollect the words, but the fenfe of it is to this purpose: What I spent I loft; what. I poffeffed is left to others; what I away remains with me. gave Since I am thus infenfibly engaged in facred writ, I cannot forbear making an extract of feveral paffages which I have always read with great delight in the book of Job. It is the account which that holy man gives of his behaviour in the days of his profperity, and if confidered only as a human compofition, is a finer picture of a charitable and good-natured man than is to be met with in any other author. "Oh that I were as in months paft, as in the days when "God preferved me: when his candle fhined upon my "head, and when by his light I walked through dark"nefs: when the Almighty was yet with me: when my "children were about me: when I washed my steps "with butter, and the rock poured out rivers of oil.. |