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which we understand the just mean between bashfulness and impudence.

I shall conclude with observing, that as the same man may be both modest and assured, so it is also possible for the same person to be both impudent and bashful.

We have frequent instances of this odd kind of mixture in people of depraved minds and mean education; who, though they are not able to meet a man's eyes, or pronounce a sentence without confusion, can voluntarily commit the greatest villanies, or most indecent actions.

Such a person seems to have made a resolution to do ill even in spite of himself, and in defiance of all those checks and restraints his temper and complexion seem to have laid in his way.

Upon the whole, I would endeavour to establish this maxim, That the practice of virtue is the most proper method to give a man a becoming assurance in his words and actions. Guilt always seeks to shelter itself in one of the extremes, and is sometimes attended with both.

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VANITY OF MOST MEN'S PRAYERS.

Non tu prece poscis emaci,

Quæ nisi seductis nequeas committere divis:
At bona pars procerum tacita libabit acerra.
Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humi.
lesque susurros

Tollere de templis; et aperto vivere voto.

Mens bona, fama, fides, hæc clare, et ut audiat hospes.

Illa sibi introrsum, et sub lingua immurmurat:
O si

Ebullit patrui præclarum funus! Et O si
Sub rastro crepet argenti mihi seria dextro,
Hercule! pupillumie utinam, quem proximus

hares

Impello expungam!

PERS.

Thy pray'rs the test of heaven will bear:
Nor need'st thou take the gods aside to hear:
While others, even the mighty men of Rome,
Big swell'd with mischief, to the temples come;
And in low murmurs and with costly smoke,
Heav'n's help, to prosper their black vows, invoke.
So boldly to the gods mankind reveal

What from each other they, for shame, conceal.
Give me good fame, ye pow'rs, and make me just:
Thus much the rogue to public ears will trust.
In private then,-when wilt thou, mighty Jove,
My wealthy uncle from this world remove?
Or,-O thou thunderer's son, great Hercules,
That once thy bounteous deity would please
To guide my rake upon the chinking sound
Of some vast treasure hidden under ground!
O were my pupil fairly knock'd o' th' head!
I should possess th' estate if he were dead.
DRYDEN.

WHERE Homer represents Phoenix, the tutor of

Achilles, as persuading his pupil to lay aside his resentments, and give himself up to the intreaties of his countrymen, the poet, in order to make him speak in character, ascribes to him a speech full of those fables and allegories, which old men take delight in

relating, and which are very proper for instruction. "The gods," says he, "suffer themselves to be prevailed upon by intreaties. When mortals have offend. ed them by their transgressions, they appease them by vows and sacrifices. You must know, Achilles, that Prayers are the daughters of Jupiter. They are crippled by frequent kneeling, have their faces full of cares and wrinkles, and their eyes always cast towards heaven. They are constant attendants on the goddess Ate, and march behind her. This goddess walks for. ward with a bold and haughty air, and being very light of foot, runs through the whole earth, grieving and afflicting the sons of men. She gets the start of Prayers, who always follow her, in order to heal those persons whom she wounds. He who honours these daughters of Jupiter, when they draw near to him, receives great benefit from them; but as for him who rejects them, they intreat their father to give his orders to the goddess Ate to punish him for his hardness of heart." This noble allegory needs but little explanation; for whether the goddess Ate signifies injury, as some have explained it; or guilt in general, as others; or divine justice, as I am the more apt to think, the interpretation is obvious enough.

I shall produce another heathen fable relating to prayers, which is of a more diverting kind. One would think, by some passages in it, that it was composed by Lucian, or at least by some author who has endeavoured to imitate his way of writing; but as dissertations of this nature are more curious than useful, I shall give my reader the fable, without any further inquiries after the author.

"Menippus the philosopher was a second time taken up into heaven by Jupiter, when for his entertainment he lifted up a trap-door that was placed by his footstool. At its rising, there issued through it such a din of cries as astonished the philosopher. Upon his asking what they meant, Jupiter told him they were the prayers that were sent up to him from

the earth. Menippus, amidst the confusion of voices, which was so great that nothing less than the ear of Jove could distinguish them, beard the words' riches, honour, and long life,' repeated to several different tones and languages. When the first hubbub of sounds was over, the trap-door being left open, the voices came up more separate and distinct. The first prayer was a very odd one; it came from Athens, and desired Jupiter to increase the wisdom and the beard of his humble supplicant. Menippus knew it by the voice to be the prayer of his friend Licander the philosopher. This was succeeded by the petition of one who had just laden a ship, and promised Jupiter, if he took care of it, and returned it home again full of riches, he would make him an offering of a silver cup. Jupiter thanked him for uothing; and bending down his ear more attentively than ordinary, heard a voice complaining to him of the cruelty of an Ephesian widow, and begging him to breed compassion in her heart: this, says Jupiter, is a very honest fellow: I have received a great deal of incense from him; I will not be so cruel to him as not to hear his prayers. He was then interrupted with a whole volley of vows, which were made for the health of a tyrannical prince by his subjects who prayed for him in his presence. Menippus was surprised, after having listened to prayers offered up with so much ardour and devotion, to hear low whispers from the same assembly, expos tulating with Jove for suffering such a tyrant to live, and asking him how his thunder could lie idle? Jupiter was so offended at these prevaricating rascals, that he took down the first vows, and puffed away the last. The philosopher seeing a great cloud mounting upwards, and making its way directly to the trap-door, inquired of Jupiter what it meant. This, says Jupiter, is the smoke of a whole hecatomb that is offered me by the general of an army, who is very importunate with me to let him cut off an hundred thousand men that are drawn up in array against him: what does the

impudent wretch think I see in him, to believe that I will make a sacrifice of so many mortals as good as himself, and all this to his glory, forsooth! But hark, says Jupiter, there is a voice I never heard but in time of danger; it is a rogue that is shipwrecked in the Ionian sea. I saved him on a plank but three days ago, upon his promise to mend his manners; the scoundrel is not worth a groat, and yet has the impudence to offer me a temple, if I will keep him from sinking. But yonder, says he, is a special youth for you, he desires me to take his father, who keeps a great estate from him, out of the miseries of human life. The old fellow shall live till he makes his heart ache, I can tell him that for his pains. This was followed by the soft voice of a pious lady, desiring Jupiter that she might appear amiable and charming in the sight of her emperor. As the philosopher was reflecting on this extraordinary petition, there blew a gentle wind through the trap-door, which he at first mistook for a gale of zephyrs, but afterwards found it to be a breeze of sighs: they smelt strong of flowers and incense, and were succeeded by most passionate complaints of wounds and torments, fires and arrows, cruelty, despair, and death. Menippus fancied that such lament. able cries arose from some general execution, or from wretches lying under the torture; but Jupiter told him that they came up to him from the isle of Paphos, and that he every day received complaints of the same nature from that whimsical tribe of mortals who are called lovers. I am so trifled with, says he, by this generation of both sexes, and find it so impossible to please them, whether I grant or refuse their petitions, that I shall order a western wind for the future to intercept them in their passage, and blow them at ran. dom upon the earth. The last petition I heard was from a very aged man of near an hundred years old, begging but for one year more of life, and then promising to die contented. This is the rarest old fellow, says Jupiter. He has made this prayer to me for

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