that" He here lost his voice a second time, in the extremity of his rage; and the whole company, who were all of them tories, bursting out into a sudden laugh, he threw down his penny in great wrath, and retired with a most formidable frown.

"This, Sir, I thought fit to acquaint you with, that you may make what use of it you please. I only wish that you would sometimes diversify your papers with many other pieces of natural history, whether of insects or animals; this being a subject which the most common reader is capable of understanding, and which is very diverting in its nature; besides that, it highly redounds to the praise of that Being who has inspired the several parts of the sensitive world with such wonderful and different kinds of instinct as enable them to provide for themselves, and preserve their species in that state of existence wherein they are placed. There is no party concerned in speculations of this nature, which, instead of inflaming those unnatural heats that prevail among us, and take up most of our thoughts, may divert our minds to subjects that are useful, and suited to reasonable creatures. Dissertations of this kind are the more proper for your purpose, as they do not require any depth of mathematics, or any previous science to qualify the reader for the understanding of them. To this I might add, that it is a shame for men to be ignorant of these worlds of wonders, which are transacted in the midst of them, and not be acquainted with those objects which are every where before their eyes. To this I farther might add, that several are of opinion, there is no other use in many of these creatures, than to furnish matter of contemplation and wonder to those inhabitants of the earth, who are its only creatures that are capable of it.

I am, Sir, your constant reader,

And humble servant.'

After having presented my reader with this set of letters which are all upon the same subject, I shall here insert one that has no relation to it. But it has always been my maxim never to refuse going out of my way to do any honest man a service, especially when I have an interest in it myself.

· MOST VENERABLE NESTOR,

As you are a person that very eminently distinguish yourself in the promotion of the public good, I desire your friendship in signifying to the town what concerns the greatest good of life, health. I do assure you, Sir, there is in a vault, under the Exchange in Cornhill, over-against Pope's-head-alley, a parcel of French wines, full of the seeds of good-humour, cheerfulness, and friendly mirth. I have been told, the learned of our nation agree, there is no such thing as bribery in liquors; therefore I shall presume to send you of it, lest you should think it inconsistent with integrity to recommend what you do not understand by experience. In the mean time please to insert this, that every man may judge for himself.

I am, Sir, &c.'

N° 161. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1713.

-Incoctum generoso pectus honesto.-PERS. Sat. ii. 74. A genuine virtue of a vigorous kind,

Pure in the last recesses of the mind.-DRYDEN.

EVERY principle that is a motive to good actions ought to be encouraged, since men are of so different a make, that the same principle does not work equally upon all minds. What some men are prompted to

by conscience, duty, or religion, which are only different names for the same thing, others are prompted to by honour.

The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education. This paper, therefore, is chiefly designed for those who by means of any of these advantages are, or ought to be, actuated by this glorious principle.

But, as nothing is more pernicious than a principle of action, when it is misunderstood, I shall consider honour with respect to three sorts of men. First of all, with regard to those who have a right notion of it. Secondly, with regard to those who have a mistaken notion of it. And thirdly, with regard to those who treat it as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule.

In the first place, true honour, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the same effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the laws of God; honour, as it is graceful to human nature. The religious man fears, the man of honour scorns, to do an ill action. The latter considers vice as something that is beneath him, the other as something that is offensive to the Divine Being. The one as what is unbecoming, the other as what is forbidden. Thus Seneca speaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares, that were there no God to see or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and so vile, a nature.

I shall conclude this head with the description of honour in the part of young Juba:

Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings,
The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,

That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her,
And imitates her actions where she is not,
It ought not to be sported with.-

-CATO.

In the second place, we are to consider those who havé mistaken notions of honour. And these are such as establish any thing to themselves for a point of honour, which is contrary either to the laws of God, or of their country; who think it more honourable to revenge than to forgive an injury; who make no scruple of telling a lie, but would put any man to death that accuses them of it; who are more careful to guard their reputation by their courage, than by their virtue. True fortitude is indeed so becoming in human nature, that he who wants it scarce deserves the name of a man; but we find several who so much abuse this notion, that they place the whole idea of honour in a kind of brutal courage; by which means we have had many among us who have called themselves men of honour, that would have been a disgrace to a gibbet. In a word, the man who sacrifices any duty of a reasonable creature to a prevailing mode or fashion, who looks upon any thing as honourable that is displeasing to his Maker, or destructive to society, who thinks himself obliged by this principle to the practice of some virtues and not of others, is by no means to be reckoned among true men of honour.

Timogenes was a lively instance of one actuated by false honour. Timogenes would smile at a man's jest who ridiculed his Maker, and at the same time run a man through the body that spoke ill of his friend. Timogenes would have scorned to have betrayed a secret that was intrusted with him, though the fate of his country depended upon the discovery of it. Timogenes took away the life of a young fellow in a duel, for having spoken ill of Belinda, a lady whom he himself had seduced in her youth, and be

trayed into want and ignominy. To close his character, Timogenes, after having ruined several poor tradesmen's families who had trusted him, sold his estate to satisfy his creditors; but, like a man of honour, disposed of all the money he could make of it, in the paying off his play debts, or, to speak in his own language, his debts of honour.

In the third place, we are to consider those persons, who treat this principle as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule. Men who are professedly of no honour, are of a more profligate and abandoned nature than even those who are actuated by false notions of it, as there are more hopes of a heretic than of an atheist. These sons of infamy consider honour with old Syphax, in the play before mentioned, as a fine imaginary notion that leads astray young unexperienced men, and draws them into real mischiefs, while they are engaged in the pursuits of a shadow. These are generally persons who, in Shakspeare's phrase, are worn and hackneyed in the ways of men; whose imaginations are grown callous, and have lost all those delicate sentiments which are natural to minds that are innocent and undepraved. Such old battered miscreants ridicule every thing as romantic that comes in competition with their present interest, and treat those persons as visionaries, who dare stand up in a corrupt age for what has not its' immediate reward joined to it. The talents, interest, or experience, of such men, make them very often useful in all parties, and at all times. But whatever wealth and dignities they may arrive at, they ought to consider, that every one stands as a blot in the annals of his country, who arrives at the temple of honour by any other way than through that of virtue.