provide for me. I am now under her protection, and know not how to fhew my gratitude better than by giving this account to the RAmbler. ZOSIM A. NUMB. 13. TUESDAY, May 1, 1750. Commiffumque teges & vino tartus & irá. And let not wine or anger wrest HOR. FRANCIS. I Tis related by Quintus Curtius, that the Perfians always conceived an invincible contempt of a man, who had violated the laws of fecrecy; for they thought, that, however he might be deficient in the qualities requifite to actual excellence, the negative virtues at least were in his power, and though he perhaps could not fpeak well if he was to try, it was still eafy for him not to speak. In forming this opinion of the eafinefs of fecrefy, they feem to have confidered it as oppofed, not to treachery, but loquacity, and to have conceived the man, whom they thus cenfured, not frighted by menaces to reveal, or bribed by promises to betray, but incited by the mere pleasure of talking, or some other motive equally trifling, to lay open his heart without reflection, and to let whatever he knew slip from him, only for want of power to retain it. Whether, by their fettled and avowed fcorn of thoughtless talkers, the Perfians were able to diffufe to any great extent the virtue of taciturnity, we are hindered by the diftance of those times from being able to difcover, there being very few memoirs remaining of the court of Perfepolis, nor any diftinct accounts handed down to us of their office clerks, clerks, their ladies of the bed-chamber, their attorneys, their chamber-maids, or their footmen. In these latter ages, though the old animofity against a prattler is ftill retained, it appears wholly to have loft its effects upon the conduct of mankind'; for fecrets are fo feldom kept, that it may with some reason be doubted, whether the antients were not mistaken in their firft poftulate, whether the quality of retention be fo generally beftowed, and whether a fecret has not fome fubtle volatility, by which it escapes imperceptibly at the fmalleft vent, or fome power of fermentation, by which it expands itfelf fo as to burst the heart that will not give it way. Those that study either the body or the mind of man, very often find the moft fpecious and pleafing theory falling under the weight of contrary experience; and instead of gratifying their vanity by inferring effects from caufes, they are always reduced at laft to conjecture causes from effects. That it is eafy to be fecret the fpeculatift can demonftrate in his retreat, and therefore thinks himself juftified in placing confidence; the man of the world knows, that, whether difficult or not, it is uncommon, and therefore finds himself rather inclined to fearch after the reafon of this univerfal failure in one of the most important duties of fociety. The vanity of being known to be trusted with a fecret is generally one of the chief motives to difclofe it; for however abfurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which fhews that it was conferred without merit, yet moft men feem rather inclined to confefs the want of virtue than of importance, and more willingly fhew their influence, though at the expence of their probity, than glide through life with no other pleasure than the private consciousness of fidelity; which, while it is pre ferved ferved, must be without praife, except from the fingle person who tries and knows it. There are many ways of telling a fecret, by which a man exempts himself from the reproaches of his confcience, and gratifies his pride without fuffering himself to believe that he impairs his virtue. He tells the private affairs of his patron, or his friend, only to those from whom he would not conceal his own; he tells them to those, who have no temptation to betray the truft, or with a denunciation of a certain forfeiture of his friendship, if he discovers that they become public. Secrets are very frequently told in the firft ardour of kindness, or of love, for the fake of proving, by fo important a facrifice, fincerity, or tenderness but with this motive, though it be ftrong in itself, vanity concurs, fince every man defires to be most efteemed by those whom he loves, or with whom he converses, with whom he paffes his hours of pleafure, and to whom he retires from bufinefs and from care. When the discovery of fecrets is under confideration, there is always a diftinction carefully to be made between our own and those of another; those of which we are fully masters as they affect only our own intereft, and those which are repofited with us in truft, and involve the happiness or convenience of fuch as we have no right to expofe to hazard. To tell our own fecrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate thofe with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly. There have, indeed, been fome enthufiaftick and irrational zealots for friendship, who have maintained, and perhaps believed, that one friend has a right to all that is in poffeffion of another; and that therefore it is a violation of kindness to exempt any fecret from this boundless confidence. Accordingly a late a late female minifter of ftate has been shameless enough to inform the world, that fhe used, when she wanted to extract any thing from her fovereign, to remind her of Montaigne's reasoning, who has determined, that to tell a fecret to a friend is no breach of fidelity, because the number of perfons trufted is not multiplied, a man and his friend being virtually the fame. That fuch a fallacy could be imposed upon any human understanding, or that an author could have advanced a pofition fo remote from truth and rèafon, any otherwife than as a declaimer, to fhew to what extent he could ftretch his imagination, and with what ftrength he could prefs his principle, would fcarcely have been credible, had not this lady kindly fhewn us how far weakness may be deluded, or indolence amufed. But fince it appears, that even this fophiftry has been able, with the help of a strong defire to repofe in quiet upon the understanding of another, to mislead honeft intentions, and an understanding not contemptible, it may not be fuperfluous to remark, that thofe things which are common among friends are only fuch as either poffeffes in his own right, and can alienate or deftroy without injury to any other perfon. Without this limitation, confidence must run on without end, the second perfon may tell the fecret to the third upon the fame principle as he received it from the firft, and the third may hand it forward to a fourth, till at last it is told in the round of friendship to them from whom it was the firft intention chiefly to conceal it. The confidence which Caius has of the faithfulnefs of Titius is nothing more than an opinion which himself cannot know to be true, and which Claudius, who firft tells his fecret to Caius may know to be false; and therefore the truft is transferred by Caius, if he reveal what has been told him, to one from from whom the perfon originally concerned would have withheld it; and, whatever may be the event, Caius has hazarded the happiness of his friend, without neceffity and without permiffion, and has put that truft in the hand of fortune which was given only to virtue. All the arguments upon which a man who is telling the private affairs of another may ground his confidence of fecurity, he must upon reflection know to be uncertain, becaufe he finds them without effect upon himself. When he is imagining that Titius will be cautious from a regard to his intereft, his reputation, or his duty, he ought to reflect that he is himself at that inftant acting in oppofition to all these reasons, and revealing what intereft, reputation, and duty direct him to conceal. Every one feels that in his own cafe he should confider the man incapable of truft, who believed himfelf at liberty to tell whatever he knew to the first whom he should conclude deferving of his confidence; therefore Caius, in admitting Titius to the affairs imparted only to himfelf, muft know that he violates his faith, fince he acts contrary to the intention of Claudius, to whom that faith was given. For promises of friendship are, like all others, uselefs and vain, unless they are made in fome known fenfe, adjusted and acknowledged by both parties. I am not ignorant that many queftions may be ftarted relating to the duty of fecrecy, where the affairs are of publick concern; where fubfequent reasons may arife to alter the appearance and nature of the truft; that the manner in which the fecret was told may change the degree of obligation; and that the principles upon which a man is chofen for a confident may not always equally constrain. him. But these fcruples, if not too intricate, are of too extenfive confideration for my prefent purofe, nor are they fuch as generally occur in com mon |