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please themselves with the enjoyment of that wealth, which they never permit others to partake. From any cenfures of the world, or reproaches of his confcience, he has an appeal to action and to knowledge; and though his whole life is a courfe of rapacity and avarice, he concludes himself to be tender and liberal, because he has once performed an act of liberality and tenderness.

As a glafs which magnifies objects by the approach of one end to the eye, leffens them by the application of the other, fo vices are extenuated by the inverfion of that fallacy, by which virtues are augmented. Thofe faults which we cannot conceal from our own notice, are confidered, however frequent, not as habitual corruptions, or fettled practices, but as cafual failures, and fingle lapfes. A man who has, from year to year, fet his country to fale, either for the gratification of his ambition or refentment, confeffes that the heat of party now and then betrays the feverest virtue to measures that cannot be seriously defended. He that spends his days and nights in riot and debauchery, owns that his paffions oftentimes overpower his refolution. But each comforts himself that his faults are not without precedent, for the beft and the wifeft men have given way to the violence of sudden temptations.

There are men who always confound the praise of goodness with the practice, and who believe themselves mild and moderate, charitable and faithful, because they have exerted their eloquence in commendation of mildness, fidelity, and other virtues. This is an error almost universal among thofe that converse much with dependents, with fuch whose fear or intereft difpofes them to a feeming reverence for any declamation, however enthusiaftick, and fubmiffion to any boaft, however arrogant, Having none to recall their attention to

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their lives, they rate themselves by the goodness of their opinions, and forget how much more eafily men may fhew their virtue in their talk than in their actions.

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The tribe is likewife very numerous of those who regulate their lives, not by the ftandard of religion, but the measure of other men's virtue; who Jull their own remorfe with the remembrance of crimes more atrocious than their own, and seem to believe that they are not bad while another can be found worfe.

For escaping these and a thousand other deceits, many expedients have been propofed. Some have recommended the frequent confultation of a wife friend, admitted to intimacy, and encouraged to fincerity. But this appears a remedy by no means adapted to general ufe: for in order to fecure the virtue of one, it prefuppofes more virtue in two than will generally be found. In the first, such a defire of rectitude and amendment, as may incline him to hear his own accusation from the mouth of him whom he esteems, and by whom, therefore, he will always hope that his faults are not difcovered; and in the fecond fuch zeal and honefty, as will make him content for his friend's advantage to lofe his kindness.

A long life may be paffed without finding a friend in whofe understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whofe opinion we can value at once for his juftness and fincerity. A weak man, however honeft, is not qualified to judge. A man of the world, however penetrating, is not fit to counsel. Friends are often chofen for fimilitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings, because they are his own. Friends are tender and unwilling to give pain, or they are interested, and fearful to offend.

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These objections have inclined others to advise, that he who would know himself, fhould confult his enemies, remember the reproaches that are vented to his face, and liften for the cenfures that are uttered in private. For his great bufinefs is to know his faults, and thofe malignity will discover, and refentment will reveal. But this precept may be often fruftrated; for it feldom happens that rivals or opponents are fuffered to come near enough to know our conduct with fo much exactnefs as that confcience fhould allow and reflect the accufation. The charge of an enemy is often totally falfe, and commonly fo mingled with falfehood, that the mind takes advantage from the failure of one part to difcredit the reft, and never fuffers any difturbance afterward from fuch partial reports.

Yet it feems that enemies have been always found by experience the most faithful monitors; for adverfity has ever been confidered as the ftate in which a man moft eafily becomes acquainted with himself, and this effect it must produce by withdrawing flatterers, whofe bufinefs it is to hide our weaknesses from us, or by giving loose to malice, and licence to reproach; or at leaft by cutting off thofe pleasures which called us away from meditation on our conduct, and repreffing that pride which too eafily perfuades us, that we merit whatever we enjoy.

Part of thefe benefits it is in every man's power to procure to himself, by affigning proper portions of his life to the examination of the reft, and by putting himself frequently in fuch a fituation by retirement and abftraction, as may weaken the influ-, ence of external objects. By this practice he may obtain the folitude of adverfity without its melan-. choly, its inftructions without its cenfures, and its fenfibility without its perturbations.

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No 28. The neceffity of fetting the world at a diftance from us, when we are to take a furvey of ourselves, has fent many from high ftations to the feverities of a monaftick life; and indeed, every man deeply engaged in bufinefs, if all regard to another ftate be not extinguished, muft have the conviction, though, perhaps, not the resolution of Valdeffo, who, when he folicited Charles the fifth to difmifs him, being afked, whether he retired upon disgust, anfwered that he laid down his commiffion, for no other reafon but because there ought to be fome time for fober reflection between the life of a foldier and his death.

There are few conditions which do not entang us with fublunarý hopes and fears, from which it neceffary to be at intervals difencumbered, that may place ourselves in his presence who views in their caufes, and actions in their motive we may, as Chilling worth expreffes it, confid as if there were no

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