either sacrifice them, or make a sacrifice which is far more painful to him, of one of his own desires.

In the present state of manners,-in which, at least among the higher orders of society, there is so very little of what was once considered as domestic life, and in the place of its simple unpretending enjoyments, such constant and close succession of almost theatrical exhibitions, on stages, on which each is to each mutually spectacle and spectator,—to perform gracefully their part is as much an object of ambition to the unpaid actors and actresses, in this voluntary and unremitting drama, as it is to the actors and actresses, on another stage, whose livelihood, as well as glory, depends on the number of hands, which they can render by their best efforts, most noisy in applause. That there is a very powerful charm, in elegant manners, and in the lighter eloquence of conversation, which can adapt itself readily to every subject, from the statesmanship of the day to the flower or the feather, I am far from denying, and that, even in a moral view, from the influence which it gives to the opinions of the individual, and the easy happiness which it spreads to all around him, this excellence, frivolous as it may seem, is not to be despised, -however humble and comparatively insignificant it must always be rated, when placed in the scale of merit with nobler wisdom, or still nobler excel lence of the heart. One great evil of this system of universal display, however, and of the familiar and sprightly levities which it involves, is, that, where this gay excellence is of high value, the praise of it must be sought from all. To all alike must be paid those gallantries of manners, which all alike are to admire. The wedded and the unwedded may thus be said to live in a constant interchange of symbols of affection, which, though understood to be mere symbols, may yet, as symbols, excite that very affection which they were never seriously intended to awake. Nor is this all. In the eagerness for general admiration, there may be a wish to excite feelings, that, without amounting to love, may approach love, in the heart that is already the property of another;-an assiduity of attention, which, though there may be no thought of leading the way to absolute infidelity, has a great portion of the guilt of adultery itself, and may almost be considered as a minor species of it; since its object is to excite a peculiar admiration, which cannot be felt, without some estrangement, or tendency to es trangement, of conjugal regard. In this way, indeed, I have no doubt, that more disquietude of domestic happiness has been produced upon the whole, than by adultery itself,-and produced in bosoms that would have shrunk indignantly from the solicitations of the adulterer.

The next species of general duty, to which we have to proceed, is that which relates to the character of others.

The extent of the injury which we may occasion to any one, by wounding his reputation, is not to be estimated merely by the advantages which a pure and honourable character directly affords. It is necessary to take into ac count also, the value, above even its high intrinsic excellence, which every individual from the very constitution of our common nature,- -as explained to you in a former part of the course, when I treated of the desire of fameis led to attach to it. The conscience of the virtuous is, indeed, in one sense of the word, sufficient to itself. It cannot be unhappy, while afflictions are all from without, and there is no self-reproach within, to lay open the bosom to their cruel power; yet, even to the virtuous, the approving voice of those who are moving along with them in their earthly path, is one of the most

pleasing accessions which their happiness can receive; and to rob them of this voice, or to convert it into mu murs or whispers of reprehension, is to do all the evil which malice, that cannot rob them of the consciousness of merit itself, is able to effect. The consciousness itself, indeed, is happily not within the power of the calumniator. But if it were within his power, who can doubt that that power would be gladly exercised;-that he who defames at the risk of detection, would, if the virtues of others were submitted to his will, prevent all peril of this kind, by tearing from the heart every virtue, of which he must now be content with denying the existence, and thus at once consign his victim to ignominy, and rob him of its only consolation? So hateful, indeed, to the wicked, is the very thought of moral excellence, that, if even one of the many slanderers with whom society is filled, had this tremendous power, there might not be a single virtue remaining on the earth.

The evil, however, which calumny can do to those whose virtue is scarcely in need of any support from public approbation, is slight, when compared with the evil which it may produce to those, whose weaker virtue is mixed with much imperfection, that affords an easy pretext for censure, even when censure is unmerited; while the loss of the encouraging regard of others is more injurious, when withheld from frailty, that, even when it wishes to do what is worthy of praise, is too ready to fall, without the support to which it clings. The real imperfections of mankind are, therefore, delightful to the heart of the slanderer, who sees in them only a warrant for all those additional charges of guilt or error, which it may be his interest to add to the real amount. They are the elements of the poison which he prepares,-without which, he would have as little power to cloud the moral scene, as the enchantresses of ancient fable would have had to obscure the sun, or bring down the moon from the sky, without the baleful herbs that were essential to the incantation.

It is our duty, I will not say only to love the good, but even with our indignation against the wicked, to mix some portion of pity,-that pity which would lead us always to wish, that even their names could still be added to the list of the virtuous. If such be our duty then, what are we to think of those, who, far from pitying the wicked, would gladly double all their atrocities; and who, still farther from loving the good, would point them out, as the wicked, to public execration? There is one species of atrocity, indeed, which such malignant industry does not fail to render clear, but it would be well for him. who exhibits it, if that guilt were the guilt of others.

"He of whom you delight to speak evil," says a sententious French moralist, "may become acquainted with what you have said, and he will be your enemy; he may remain in ignorance of it, and, even though what you have said were true, you would still have to reproach yourself with the meanness of attacking one who had no opportunity of defending himself. If scandal is to be secret, it is the crime of a coward; if it is to become known, it is the crime of a madman."* The moral dilemma in this argument, is, indeed, addressed to one who may be supposed to have still a love of virtue in general, and a detestation of that which it would be cowardly to do; but even those, who are insensible to the better motive, may feel, at least, the force of the selfish one; and if the secret history of the hearts of all the malignant were known, and the feelings also known, with which they are universally regarded, it would appear, in the estimate of all which is gained and * St. Lambert, Cuv. Philosophiques, Tome II. p. 251.

all which is lost, that detraction is truly madness or folly, as much as it is guilt.

But, if the tale we love to whisper be just, can it be a crime to lament over guilt that is real! It is not a crime to lament over guilt, if we do lament over it. But if we do truly lament over the probable appearances of it, we shall not be very eager to circulate a doubt that may be injurious, till we have reason ourselves, not to doubt merely, but to believe. I do not wish to recommend that weakness of humanity, which, in the world, often passes current for virtue, though it implies rather a defect of moral feeling, than any refinement of it,—or which, at least, if it be virtue, is a virtue that can hear of oppression, and even witness it, without feeling indignation against the oppressor; and which rather would see a thousand repetitions of the injury, than give to the wicked the name and the odium which he deserves. When crimes are walking secretly in darkness, as much as when they present themselves proudly in the very sunshine of day, it is our duty, to the innocent who have suffered, to give to them the consolation of our sympathy, in the indignant feeling of their wrongs,—as it is our duty to the innocent who may suffer, to call to them to beware. Even in denouncing guilt, however, the office which we exercise is an office of duty, not of pleasure. It is to be exercised, not with the eagerness of one who rejoices in discovering something which he may condemn; but with the sorrow of a lover of human kind, who is forced to add another moral ill, to the catalogue of human delinquencies. Such are the feelings of a generous spirit, even when the vice which it discovers, is of a species that implies more than ordinary moral turpitude; and when it discovers only such foibles as are not inconsistent with the ordinary proportion of human virtue, it will love rather to speak of the virtue than of the failing,-it will think not of what the individual is only, but of what human nature is; and will not withhold from one the indulgence which it must extend to all, and of which it must, even on some occasions, have too good reason for wishing the extension to itself.

When the propagators of tales of scandal think that they have completely justified themselves by declaring that all which they have said is true, they forget that there are virtues of which they are silent, that are true, as well as the defects of which they speak with such minute and exact remembrance; -and that, if they were to omit all notice of what is excellent in a character, and to cull only what is defective, the most illustrious of mankind, without any positive violation of biographic truth, might soon cease to be illus

trious.

When detraction arises from envy, malice, or motives of sordid interest, it is evident, that it can be cured only by the cure of the passions from which it springs. But though these, at first sight, might seem to be the common sources of defamation, it is to another source that it is chiefly to be traced,— to the mere flippancy of the gay and the idle, and the necessity of filling up, with amusement of some sort, a conversation that would flag but for this ever ready resource. In these circumstances, nothing is so quick to present itself as the fault of another, even though we may have fairly begun with speaking of his virtues. "What pleasure," it has been truly said, "can two or three persons have together, who have no mutual esteem,-whose hearts are as void of feeling as their heads are void of ideas! What charm could their conversation possess, without the aid of a little scandal? The sacrifice of a third person is almost always the chief pleasure of a tête-à-tête. A vain idler, who

would otherwise be as wearisome to every body as he is weary of himself, speaks to men and women of the same character. He flatters, at the expense of the absent, their vanity and their envy :-he thus animates their languor-and they pay him in the same coin. If he is gifted with some imagination, and can express agreeably the flattering things which he wishes to appear to think of you, and the evil which he thinks of others, he is treated and caressed; becomes the favourite of every circle, and will continue for his whole life to cultivate the talent of slandering gracefully."*

There is considerable truth in a remark of another French writer, to the same purport, "That there is now-a-days less scandal than there was formerly, because there is more play. Cards, he says, have saved more reputations than a whole host of itinerant preachers could have done, though their only business had been to preach against evil-speaking. But we cannot play always; and, therefore, we may sometimes amuse ourselves with a little defamation."

The moral conclusion to be drawn from this remark is, that what cards may thus have tended in part to do, may be effected by other better means. If scandal arise, in a great measure, from poverty of conversation, it will diminish in proportion as minds become more cultivated, so as not to have every subject of discussion exhausted, when the health of the visitor and of the visited, having once been ascertained, cannot again, with any decency, be made a subject of inquiry,—and when the meteorology of the day and of the season has, after a little debate, been settled in all its physical exactness. It is to this general increase of mental cultivation that the lessening of scandal is to be attributed, far more than to mere card-playing, which, even when the use of cards was more prevalent than now, could afford only a suspension of hostilities that were ever ready to begin again with new violence, when the game was finished,-with, perhaps, a little additional bitterness on the part of the losers, against the vices of the wicked, and the frailties of the weak. The only true and permanent source of peace and amity with the faults of the absent is that interest in better subjects, which enables the present to animate their conversation, and to sustain it in rich variety, without the necessity of wandering to that resource, which marks the folly of the head, still more than the uncharitableness of the heart. It is pleasing to trace, in this, as in all its other influences, the connexion of intellectual culture, with the virtues which it not merely embellishes but invigorates; to perceive that philosophy, which, in senates and councils, teaches purer humanity to statesmen and kings, extend its gentle influence to the private circle, and diffuse a more amiable cheerfulness on the very pleasures of the gay.

The next duty of which we have to treat, is that of veracity, which relates to the knowledge or belief of others, as capable of being affected by the meanings, true or false, which our words or our conduct may convey; and consists in the faithful conformity of our language, or of our conduct when it is intended tacitly to supply the place of language, to the truth which we profess to deliver, or, at least, to that which is at the time believed by us to be

true.

So much of the happiness of social life is derived from the use of language, and so profitless would the mere power of language be, but for the truth which dictates it, that the abuse of the confidence, which is placed in our

*St. Lambert, Cuv. Phil. Tome II. p. 250.

declarations, may not merely be in the highest degree injurious to the individual deceived, but would tend, if general, to throw back the whole race of mankind into that barbarism from which they have emerged, and progressively ascended through still purer air and still brighter sunshine, to that noble height which they have reached. It is not wonderful, therefore, that veracity, so important to the happiness of all, and yet subject to so many temptations of personal interest in the violation of it, should, in all nations, have had a high place assigned to it among the virtues.

That, in the case of a virtue, so essential to the commerce of life, man should have been led instinctively to the practice of it, would not of itself appear absurd, or even very wonderful, to those, who consider the other instructive tendencies in our constitution; and since all, in uttering falsehood, are conscious of an effort which represses the truth that seems to start of itself to the lips, and all seem to believe what is told them, till the experience of frequent deceit have induced some degree of doubt in the young listener, who begins to be a sceptic; it has been supposed, by many philosophers, that there are, in our nature, two instinctive tendencies, adapted to each other,— a tendency to speak truth, and a tendency to believe what is spoken.

On this subject, it is not very easy to decide with absolute confidence; since it must be admitted by all, that, whether there were, or were not, such original tendencies in the mind, they now do truly form a part of it,—that we have a disposition to speak truth as often as we speak, without any positive motive to be deceitful; and a disposition to believe what is related to us, if, in the circumstances of the relater, there be no obvious interest in falsehood, and in the circumstances of the narrative itself, no apparent improbability. But since principles are not to be multiplied, without urgent necessity, Iconfess, that I do not see, in the phenomena of veracity and belief, sufficient reason to assert peculiar instincts, as concerned in the production of them; since they admit of a sufficient explanation, by other more general princi ples.

That there is a love of society in man, and a desire of sympathetic feeling in the society that is loved, I am far from denying; and if this general love of sympathy with our feelings, to which truth contributes, were all which is meant by the assertion of instinctive veracity, it would be absurd to object to the principle. But this is not what is meant by the assertors of the doctrine. The tendency, of which they speak, is an instinct additional; and it is to this additional instinct only, that the remarks which I have to offer, are meant to be applied.

If in our inquiry we are to go back to the very origin of language, it may be presumed, that some want, or wish, would be felt, when words were uttered. The very motive, therefore, which led to the use of speech, would lead to the truth of it; since no wish could be attained, by the use of language, unless the wish were truly expressed. It surely cannot seem wonderful, that the expression of wants should be sincere; though it might, indeed, have seemed very wonderful, if, with the wish of obtaining food from a brother savage, the savage had employed his power of utterance, only to declare, that he was not hungry. He might speak falsehoods on some occasion, indeed, on the same principle as that which led him, on ordinary occasions to be sincere,—that is to say, from the influence of a powerful desire. He would have some secret wish to gratify by the deceit, and having this wish, he might say what was not, as he was before in the habit of saying what was.