“unhappy boy, thou art fled for ever, "to cheer and delight him no more.”

Yet he forms a thousand purpofes to be fober: he maintains them for a time. He takes comfort from this feeming amendment: he begins to be reconciled to himself. He endeavours to forget the paft: the future is to be regulated by prudence and propriety. He rifes in his own esteem. “Whatsoever things are "pure, and venerable, and of good re"port, he thinks on these things." In fhort, he is refolved, when he shall next meet the perfons who led him aftray, by no means to comply with them, that is, not beyond the bounds of temperance and wifdom. He meets them : the focial fpirit kindles; converfation takes its former turn, a turn most dangerously contaminating; youthful imagination glows; jollity and wine add fewel; his paffions are again on fire; his refolutions melt

II

.

away how rapid and irrefiftible the tranfition from thence to new folly!

The modefty of Nature thus overTeaped, and her reluctance baffled, what is there now left to check our young adventurer? His defires, inflamed by indulgence, refuse the rein, and rush on, 66 as the horse rufheth into the battle." Even when fatiety, and wearinefs, would join with reafon, and conviction, to obftruct their progrefs; fancy and fashion, luxury and diffipation, fpur them along. The misgivings of guilt grow weaker; the remonftrances of confcience are little heard, and lefs regarded; or if at a graver hour, in fome fituations unavoidable, these fhould prove more importunate and pungent than ordinary, the wretched youth takes refuge in louder folly and deeper riot.

But remark, I befeech you, what happens in the mean while. He is fhocked

at finding fuch difappointments in his pleasures, and fuch difgufts from his afsociates, as he never apprehended. The first very seldom answer his expectations; and of the last some deceive, and fome devour him he difcovers ingratitude in many, infincerity in more, and selfishness in most he is confounded with the treachery of one, and provoked by the impudence of another. What is the confequence of all? His fpirits are depreffed, his mind is chagrined, and his temper unhinged. The natural sweetness of his better days is dried up. Difpleased with others, displeased with himself, he becomes peevish and fplenetic. The benignity of virtue, and with it the charm of life, are vanished. The confcious dignity, the delicious fentiments, which formerly transported him, being now by the force of ignoble paffions extinguished, he finks into real littlenefs, his foul fhrivels into narrow affections and illiberal views: he loves no one's intereft thoroughly but his own, and is therefore tranfported no

longer: "his frozen heart," as one has expreffed it," palpitates with tenderness no "more." He is alive only to the feeling of his meanness and mifery, mingled with ftarts of tranfient gratification, with gleams of focial gladness, and now and then a few flights of airy exultation. I faid, Of airy exultation, and will endeavour to explain myself.

Having forfeited the nobility of his nature, and yet retaining a remembrance of it, his debasement appears to him, as often as the reflection recurs, fo deeply humiliating, that he is compelled to look round for fome method of felf-fupport, fome kind of compenfation to his pride for a lofs which he can never cease to regret. Fain, indeed, would he believe that Virtue is little more than a name; that his former ideas of her were chiefly, if not altogether, the dictates of education, or the illufions of ignorance. He is often told fo by his vicious compa

nions, by those particularly whose hearts are more callous than his own. Still however fufpicions will arife; a degradation, and a discontent, will be felt. A frown from the Divinity in his breast, a single look of difapprobation from that dreaded Power, will get the better of all thofe unnatural efforts, and cover him with confufion, in his calmer moments. What shall he then do? Whither fhall he fly then, for fhelter from retrofpect, from reason, from himself?

The fyftem of Modern Honour is at hand, to receive, to re-affure, and foothe him; that boafted contrivance of defperate libertines, that notable system, which by boldly affuming the title of Virtue, frequently wearing her femblance, and freely paffing for her amongst the generality of the fashionable, the great, and the gay, will enable him, in fome meafure, to elude the terrors of the inward judge; whilft it gives him a pretended licence to commit almoft every crime,

t to plume himself on the reputa