sure, and to whom he retires from business and from care.

When the discovery of secrets is under consideration, there is always a distinction caresully to be made between our own and thofe of another; those of which we are sully masters, as they affect only our own interest, and thofe which are reposited with us in trust, and involve the happiness or convenience of such as we have no right to expofe to hazard. To tell our own secrets is generally folly, but that foHy is without guilt; to communicate thofe with which we arc intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.

There have, indeed, been some enthusiastick and irrational zealots for friendship, who have maintained, and perhaps believed, that one friend has a righe to all that is in possession of another; and that therefore it is a violation of kindness to exempt any secret from this boundless confidence. Accordingly a late semale minister of state has been shameless enough to insorm the world, that she used, when she wanted to extract any thing from her sovereign, to remind her of Monuigne's reasoning, who has determined, that to tell a secret to a friend is no breach of sidelity, because the number of persons trusted is not multiplied, a man and his friend being virtually the fame.

That such a fallacy could be impofed upon any human understanding, or that an author could have advanced a pofition so remote from truth and reason, any other ways than as a declaimer, to shew to what extent he could stretch his imagination, and with what strength he could press his principle, would scarcely have been credible, had not this lady kindly

shewn 0

shewn us how far weakness may be deluded, or indolence amused. But lince it appears, that even this sophistry has been able, with the help of a strong desire, to repofe in quiet upon the understanding of another, to mislead honest intentions, and an understanding not contemptible, it may not be .superfluous to remark, that thofe things which are common among friends are only such as either pofsesses in his own right, and can alienate or destroy without injury to any other person. Without this limitation, confidence must run on without end, the second person may tell the secret to the third, upon the fame principle as he received, it from the first, and the third may h2nd it forward to a fourth, till at last it is told in the round of friendship to them from whom it was the first intention to conceal it.

The confidence which Caius has of the faithsulness of Titius is nothing more than an opinion which himself cannot know to be true, and which Claudius, who first tells his secret to Caius, may know to be false; and theresore the trust is transserred by Caius, is he reveal what has been told him, to one from whom the person originally concerned would have withheld it; and whatever may be the eveftt, Caius has hazarded the happiness of his friend, without necessity and without permission, and has put that trust in the hand of fortune which was given only to virtue.

All the arguments upon which a man who is telling the private affairs of another may ground his confidence of security, he must upon reflection know to be uncertain, because he finds them without effect upon himself. When he is imagining that

G 3 Titius Titius will be cautious from a regard to his interest, his reputation, or his duty, he ought to resiectthat he is himself at that instant acting in oppofition co all these reasons, and revealing what interest, reputation, and duty direct him to conceal.

Every one seels that in his own case he should consider the man incapable of trust, who believed himself at liberty to tell whatever he knew to the first whom he should conclude deserving of his confidence} theresore Caius, in admitting Titius to the asfairs imparted only to himself, must know that he violates his faith, since he acts contrary to the intention of Claudius, to whom that faith was given. For promises of friendship are, like all others, useless and vain, unless they are made in some known sense, adjusted and acknowledged by bith parties.

I am not ignorant that many questions may be started relating to the duty of secrecy, where the affairs are of publick concern; where subsequent reasuns may arise to. alter the appearance and nature of the trust; that the manner in which the secret was told may change the degree of obligation ,, and that the principles upon which a man is chofen for a confident may not always equally constrain him. But these scruples, is not too intricate, are of too extensive consideration for my present purpose, nor are they such as generally occur in common lise; and though casuistical knowledge be usesul in proper hands, yet it ought by no means to be carelessly exposed, since most will use it rather to lull than awaken their own consciences; and the threads of reasoning, on which truth is suspended, are frequently drawn to such subtility, that common eyes

cannot

cannot perceive, and common sensibility cannot seel them.

The whole doctrine, as well as practice of secrecy, is so perplexing and dangerous, that, next to him who is compelled to trust, I think him unhappy who is chofen to be trusted; for he is often involved in scruples without the liberty of calling in the help of any other understanding; he is frequently drawn into guilt, under the appearance of friendship and honesty; and sometimes subjected to suspicion by the treachery of others, who are engaged without his knowledge in the same schemes; for he that has one confident has generally more, and when he is at last betrayed, is in doubt on whom he shall'fix the crime.

The rules therefore that I shall propofe concerning secrecy, and from which I think it not sase to deviate, without long and exact deliberation, are—Never to solicit the knowledge of a secret. Not willingly, nor without many limitations, to accept such confidence when it is ofsered. Whea a secret is once admitted, to consider the trust as of a very high nature, important as society, and sacred as truth, and therefore not to be violated for any incidental convenience, or flight appearance of contrary fitness.

Numb. 14. Saturday, May 5, 1750.

Sure such a various creature ne'er was known. Francis.

MONG the many inconsistencies which folly

±\. produces, or infirmity susfers in the human mind, there has often been observed a manisest and striking contrariety between the lise of an author and his writings; and Milton, in a letter to a learned stranger, by whom he had been visited, with great reason congratulates himself upon the consciousness of being found equal to his own character, and having preserved, in a private and samiliar interview, that reputation which his works had procured him.

Thofe whom the appearance of virtue, or the evidence of genius, have tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer in whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity; the bubble that sparkled before them has become common water at the touch; the phantom of persection has vanished when they wished to press it to their bofom. They have lost the pleasure of imagining how sar humanity may be exalted, and, perhaps, selt themselves less inclined to toil up the steeps of virtue, when they observe thofe who seem best able to point the

way,