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think, therefore, upon her, is perfection of wisdom, and whoso watcheth for her, shall quickly be without care. For she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her, sheweth herself favourably unto them in the ways, and meeteth them in every thought.”

Pride.

1. THERE is no passion which steals into the heart more imperceptibly, and covers itself under more disguises, than pride. For my own part, I think if there is any passions or vice which I am wholly a stranger to it is this: though at the same time, perhaps this very judgment which I form of myself, proceeds, in some measure, from this corrupt principle.

2. I have been always wonderfully delighted with that sentence in the holy writ, Pride was not made for man. There is not indeed any single view of human nature under its present condition, which is not sufficient to extinguish in us all the secret seeds of pride; and, on the contrary, to sink the soul into the lowest state of humility and what the shool-men call self-annihilation. Pride was not made for man, as he is,

1. A sinful,

2. An ignorant,

3. A miserable being.

There is nothing in his understanding, in his will, or in his present condition, that can tempt any considerate creature to pride or vanity.

3. These three very reasons why he should not be proud are notwithstanding the reasons why he is so. Were not he a sinful creature, he would not be subject to a passion which rises from the depravity of his nature; were he not an ignorant creature, he would see that he has nothing to be proud of: and were not the whole species miserable, he would not have those wretched objects before his eyes, which are the occasions of this passion, and which make one man value himself more than another.

4. A wise man will be contented that his glory be deferred till such time as he shall be truly glorified; when his understanding shall be cleared, his will rectified, and his happiness assured; or in other words, when he shall be neither sinful, nor ignorant, nor miserable.

5. If there be any thing which makes human nature appear ridiculous to beings of superior faculties, it must be pride. They know so well the vanity of those imaginary perfections that swell the heart of man and of those little supernumerary advantages, whether in birth, fortune, or title, which one man enjoys above another, that it must certainly very much astonish, if it does not very much divert them, when they see a mortal puffed up, and valuing himself above his neighbours on any of these accounts,

at the same time he is obnoxious until the common calamities of the species.

6. To set this thought in its true light, we will fancy, if you please, that yonder mole-hill is inhabited by reasonable creatures, and that every pismire (his shape and way of life only excepted) endowed with human passions. How should we smile to hear one give us an account of the pedigrees, distinctions, and titles that reign among them!

7. Observe how the whole swarm divide and make way for the pismire that passes through them! You must understand he is an emmet of quality and has better blood in his veins than any pismire in the mole-hill. Don't you see how sensible he is of it, how slow he marches forward, how the whole rabble of ants keep their distance?

8. Here you may observe one placed upon a little eminence, and looking down on a long row of labourers. He is the richest insect on this side the hillock, he has a walk of a half a yard in length and a quarter of an inch in breadth, he keeps an hundred menial servants, and has at least fifteen barley-corns in his granary. He is now chiding and beslaving the emmet that stands before him, and who for all that we can discover, is as good an emmet as himself.

9. But here comes an insect of figure! don't you take utice of a little white straw that he carries in his mouth? That straw you must understand, he would not part with for the longest tract about the mole-hill: did you but know what he has undergone to purchase it! See how the ants of all qualities and conditions swarm about him. Should this straw drop out of his mouth, you would see all this numerous circle of attendants follow the next that took it up, and leave the discarded insect, or run over his back to come at his successor.

10. If now you have a mind to see all the ladies of the molehill, observe first the pismire that listens to the emmet on her left hand, at the same time that she seems to turn away her head from him. He tells this poor insect that she is a goddess, that her eyes are brighter than the sun, and life and death are at her disposal. She believes him, and gives herself a thousand little airs upon it.

11. Mark the vanity of the pismire on your left hand. She can scarce crawl with age; but you must know she values herself upon her birth: and if you mind, spurns at every one that comes within her reach. The little nimble coquet that is running along by the side of her, is a wit. She has broken many a pismire's heart. Do but observe what a drove of lovers are running after her.

12. We will here finish this imaginary scene; but first of all

to draw the parallel closer, will suppose, if you please, that death comes down upon the mole-hill, in the shape of a cocksparrow, who picks up, without distinction, the pismire of quality and his flatterers, the pismire of substance and his daylabourers, the white straw-officer and his sycophants, with all the goddesses, wits, and beauties of the mole-hill.

13. May we not imagine that beings of superior natures and perfections regard all the instances of pride and vanity, among our own species, in the same kind of view when they take a survey of those who inhabit the earth, or in the language of an ingenious French post, of those pismires that people this heap of dirt, which human vanity has divided into climates and regions. GUARDIAN, Vol. II. No. 153.

1.

No

Drunkenness.

Ο vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in. One would wonder how drunkenness should have the good luck to be of this number. Anacharsis, being invited to a match of drinking at Corinth, demanded the prize very humourously, because he was drunk before any of the rest of the company, for, says he, when we run a race, he who arrives at the gaol first, is entitled to the reward:

2the contrary, in this thirsty generation, the honour falls upon him who carries off the greatest quantity of liquor and knocks down the rest of the company. I was the other day with honest Will Funnel, the West Saxon, who was reckoning up how much liquor had passed through him in the last twenty years of his which, according to his computation, amounted to twenty-three hogsheads of October, four ton of port, half a kilderkin of small beer, nineteen barrels of cider, and three glasses of champaign, besides which he had assisted at four hundred bowls of punch not to mention sips, draws, and whets without

number.

3. I question not but every reader's memory will suggest to him several ambitious young men, who are as vain in this particular as Will Funnel, and can boast of as glorious exploits.

Our modern philosophers observe, that there is a general decay of moisture in the globe of the earth. This they chiefly ascribe to the growth of vegetables, which incorporate into their own substance many fluid bodies that never return again to their for

mer nature.

4. But, with submission, they ought to throw into their account, those innumerable rational beings which fetch their nourishments chiefly out of liquids; especially when we consider that men, compared with their fellow-creatures drink much more than comes to their share.

5. But however highly this tribe of people may think of themselves, a drunken man is a greater monster than any that is to be found among all the creatures which God has made, as indeed there is no character which appears more despicable and deformed, in the eyes of all reasonable persons, than that of the drunkard.

6. Bonosus, one of our own countrymen who was addicted to this vice, having set up for a share in the Roman empire, and being defeated in a great battle, hanged himself. When he was seen by the army in this melancholy situation notwithstanding he had behaved himself very bravely, the common jest was, that the thing they saw hanging upon the tree before them, was not a man, but a bottle.

7. This vice has very fatal effects on the mind, the body and fortune of the person who is devoted to it.

In regard to the mind, it first of all discovers every flaw in it. The sober man, by the strength of reason, may keep under and subdue every vice or folly to which he is most inclined; but wine makes every latent seed sprout up in the soul, and shew itself; it gives fury to the passions, and force to those objects which are apt to produce them.

8. When a young fellow complained to an old philosopher that his wife was not handsome: put less water into your wine, says the philosopher, and you will quickly make her so. Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.

9. Nor does this vice only betray the hidden faults of a man, and shews them in the most odious colours, but often occasions faults to which he is not naturally subject. There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, that drunkenness does not produce, but discover faults. Common experience teaches the contrary.

10. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses qualities into the mind, which he is a stranger to in his sober moments. The persons you converse with, after the third bottle, is not the same men who at first sat down at table with you. Upon this maxim is founded one of the prettiest sayings I ever met with, which is ascribed to "Publius Syrus, He who jests upon a man who is drunk, injures the absent.

11. Thus does drunkenness act in direct contradiction to reason, whose business it is to clear the mind of every vice which has crept into it, and to guard it against all the approaches of any that endeavour to make their entrance. But, besides these ill effects which this vice produces in the person who is actually un

der its dominion, it has also a bad influence on the mind, even in its sober moments; as it insensibly weakens the understanding, impairs the memory, and makes those faults habitual which are produced by frequent excesses: it wastes the estate, banishes reputation, consumes the body, and renders a man of the brightest parts the common jest of an insignificant clown.

12. A method of spending one's time agreeable is a thing so little studied, that the common amusement of our young gentlemen (especially of such as are at a distance from those of the first breeding) is drinking. This way of entertainment has custom on its side; but as much as it has prevailed, I believe there have been very few companies that have been guilty of excess this way, where there have not happened more accidents which make against, than for the continuance of it.

13. It is very common that events arise from a debauch which are fatal, and always such as are disagreeable. With all a man's reason and good sense about him, his tongue is apt to utter things out of a mere gaiety of heart, which may displease his best friends. Who then would trust himself to the power of wine, without saying more against it, than that it raises the im agination and depresses the judgment?

14. Where there only this single consideration, that we are less masters of ourselves when we drink in the least proportion above the exigencies of thirst; I say, were this all that could be objected, it were sufficient to make us abhor this vice. But we may go on to say, that as he who drinks but a little is not master of himself, so he whe drinks much is a slave to himself.

15. As for my part, I ever esteemed a drunkard of all vicious persons the most vicious; for if our actions are to be weighed and considered according to the intention of them, what can we think of him who puts himself into a circumstance wherein he can have no intention at all, but incapacitates himself for the duties and offices of life, by a suspension of all his faculties.

16. If a man considers that he cannot, under the oppression of drink, be a friend, a gentleman, a master, or a subject; that he has so long banished himself from all that is dear and given up all that is sacred to him, he would even then think of a debauch with horror, but when he looks still further, and acknowledges that he is not only expelled out of all the relations of life, but also liable to offend against them all, what words can express the terror and detestation he would have of such a condition? And yet he owns all this of himself, who says he was drunk last night.

17. As I have all along persisted in it, that all the vicious in general are in a state of death, so I think I may add to the non existence of drunkards, that they died by their own hands. He is certainly as guilty of suicide who perishes by a slow, as he who is despatched by an immediate poison.

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