NUMB. 68. SATURDAY, November 10, 1750. Vivendum rectè, cum propter plurima, tunc his Jux.. HERVEY. THE younger Pliny has very juftly obferved, that of actions that deferve our attention, the most fplendid are not always the greateft. Fame, and wonder, and applaufe, are not excited but by external and adventitious circumstances, often diftinct and separate from virtue and heroifm. Eminence of ftation, greatnefs of effect, and all the favours of fortune, muft concur to place excellence in publick view; but fortitude, diligence, and patience, divested of their show, glide unobferved through the crowd of life, and fuffer and act, though with the fame vigour and conftancy, yet without pity and without praise. This remark may be extended to all parts of life. Nothing is to be eftimated by its effect upon common eyes and common ears. A thoufand miferics, make filent and invifible inroads on mankind, and the heart feels innumerable throbs, which never break into complaint. Perhaps, likewife, our pleafures are for the most part equally fecret, and most are borne up by fome private fatisfaction, fome internal confcioufnefs, fome latent hope, fome peculiar profpect, which they never communicate, but referve for folitary hours and clandeftine: meditation.. The main of life is, indeed, compofed of fmall incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal confequence; of infect vexations which fting us and fly away, impertinencies which buzz a while about us, and are heard no more; of meteorous pleasures which dance before us and are diffipated; of compliments which glide off the foul like other mufick, and are forgotten by him that gave and him that received them. Such is the general heap out of which every man is to cull his own condition: for, as the chemifts tell us, that all bodies are refolvable into the fame elements, and that the boundless variety of things arifes from the different proportions of very few ingredients; fo a few pains and a few pleasures are all the materials of human life, and of these the proportions are partly allotted by providence, and partly left to the arrangement of reafon and of choice. As thefe are well or ill difpofed, man is for the most part happy or miferable. For very few are involved in great events, or have their thread of life entwisted with the chain of causes on which armies or nations are fufpended; and even those who feem wholly bufied in publick affairs, and elevated above low cares or trivial pleafures, pafs the chief part of their time in familiar and domeftick scenes; from these they come into publick life, to these they are every hour recalled by paffions not to be fuppreffed; in these they have the reward of their toils, and to these at last they retire. The great end of prudence, is to give cheerfulnefs to thofe hours, which fplendour cannot gild, and and acclamation cannot exhilarate; thofe soft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws afide the ornaments or disguises, which he feels in privacy to be ufelefs incumbrances, and to lofe all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate refult of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every defire prompts the profecution. It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for fmiles and embroidery are alike occafional, and the mind is often dreffed for fhow in painted honour and fictitious benevolence. Every man muft have found fome whofe lives, in every house but their own, was a continual.feries of hypocrify, and who concealed under fair appearances bad qualities, which, whenever they thought themselves out of the reach of cenfure, broke out from their restraint, like winds imprisoned in their caverns, and whom every one had reason to love, but they whofe love a wife man is chiefly folicitous to procure. And there are others who, without any fhow of general goodness, and without the attractions by which popularity is conciliated, are received among their own families as beftowers of happiness, and reverenced as instructors, guardians, and benefactors. The most authentick witneffes of any man's character are thofe who know him in his own family, and fee him without any restraint or rule of conduct, but fuch as he voluntarily prefcribes to himself. If a man carries virtue with him into Еб his his private apartments, and takes no advantage of unlimited power or probable fecrecy; if we trace him through the round of his time, and find that his character, with thofe allowances which mortal frailty must always want, is uniform and regular, we have all the evidence of his fincerity, that one man can have with regard to another: and indeed, as hypocrify cannot be its own reward, we may, without hesitation, determine that his heart is pure. The highest panegyrick, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of fervants. For, however vanity or infolence may look down with contempt on the fuffrage of men undignified by wealth and unenlightened by education, it very feldom happens that they commend or blame without juftice. Vice and virtue are easily distinguifhed. Oppreffion, according to Harrington's aphorifm, will be felt by those that cannot fee it; and, perhaps, it falls out very often that, in moral queftions, the philofophers in the gown, and in the livery, differ not so much in their fentiments, as in their language, and have equal power of difcerning right, though they cannot point it out to others with equal addrefs. There are very few faults to be committed in folitude, or without fome agents, partners, confederates, or witneffes; and therefore, the fervant must commonly know the fecrets of a master, who has any fecrets to entruft; and failings, merely personal, are so frequently exposed by that security which pride and folly generally produce, and fo inquifitively watched by that defire of reducing the inequalities of condition, which the lower orders of the world will always feel, that the tef timony of a menial domestick can seldom be confidered as defective for want of knowledge.. And though its impartiality may be fometimes fufpected, it is at leaft as credible as that of equals, where rivalry inftigates cenfure, or friendship dictates palliations. The danger of betraying our weakness to our fervants, and the impoffibility, of concealing it from them, may be justly confidered as one motive to a regular and irreproachable life. For no condition is more hateful or despicable, than his who has put himself in the power of his fervant; in the power of him whom, perhaps, he has first corrupted by making him fubfervient to his vices, and whofe fidelity he therefore cannot enforce by any precepts of honefty or reafon. It is feldom. known that authority, thus acquired, is poffeffed without infolence, or that the mafter is not forced to confefs, by his tamenefs or forbearance, that he has enslaved himself by some foolish confidence. And his crime is equally punished, whatever part he takes of the choice to which he is reduced; and he is from that fatal hour, in which he facrificed his dignity to his paffions, in perpetual dread of infolence or defamation; of a controller at home, or an accuser abroad. He is condemned to purehase, by continual bribes, that fecrecy which bribes never fecured, and which, after a long courfe of fubmiffion, promifes, and anxieties, he will find violated in a fit of rage, or in a frolick of drunkennefs. To dread no eye, and to fufpect no tongue, is the great prerogative of innocence; an exemp❤ tion granted only to invariable virtue. But guilt has always its horrors and folicitudes; and to make |