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THE INFIDEL CORRECTED.

A YOUNG gentleman of moderate understanding, but of great vivacity, by dipping into many authors of the modish and freethinking turn, had acquired a little smattering of knowledge just enough to make an atheist or a freethinker, but not a philosopher or a man of sense. With these accomplishments he went into the country to visit his father, who was a plain, rough, honest man, and wise, though not learned. The son, who took all opportunities to shew his learning, began to establish a new religion in the family, and to enlarge the norrowness of their country notions; in which he succeeded so well, that he seduced the butler by his table talk, and staggered his eldest sister. The old gentleman began to be alarmed at the schisms that arose among his children, but did not yet believe his son's doctrine to be so pernicious as it really was, till one day, talking of his setting dog, his son said he did not question but Carlo was as immortal as any one of the family; and in the heat of the argument, told his father, that for his part, he expected to die like a dog. Upon which the old man, starting up in a passion, cried out, "Then, sirrah, you shall live like one;" and, taking his cane in his hand, cudgelled him out of his system, and brought him to more serious reflections and better studies.

"I do not," continues Sir Richard Steele, from whom this story is taken, " mention the cudgelling part of the story with a design to engage the secular arm in matters of this nature; but certainly if it ever exerts itself in affairs of opinion and speculation, it ought to

do it on such shallow and despicable pretenders to knowledge, who endeavour to give a man dark and uncomfortable propects of his being, and to destroy those principles which are the support, happiness, and glory, of all public societies, as well as of private persons.

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INGRATITUDE.

"THERE is not any vice," says South, against which mankind have raised such a loud and universal outcry, as against ingratitude; a vice never mentioned, even by any heathen writer, but with peculiar detestation. An ungrateful man is a reproach to his creation: an exception from all the visible world: neither the heavens above, nor the earth beneath, afford any thing like him; and therefore, if he would find his parallel, he must go to the region of darkness; for, besides himself, there is nothing but hell, that is receiving and never restoring.

"Ingratitude is too base to return a kindness, and too proud to regard it; much like the tops of mountains, barren, indeed, but yet lofty: they produce nothing, they feed nobody, they clothe nobody, yet are high and stately, and look down upon all the world about them.

"Ingratitude is generally attended with hard-heartedness, a want of compassion. Thus Nero sent an assassin to murder his own mother, and wished that mankind had but one head, that he might have the pleasure of cutting it off. And what an instance of ingratitude and cruelty have we in Tullia! Tullia was daughter of Servilius Tullius, sixth King of Rome;

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and, having married Tarquinius Superbus, and put him first upon killing her father, and then invading his throne, she came through the street where the body of her father lay, newly murdered and wallowing in his blood: she commanded her trembling coachman to drive his charict and horses over the body of her king and father, triumphantly, in the face of all Rome, who were looking upon her with astonishment and detestation."

In a little work, entitled Friendly Cautions to Officers, the following atrocious instance of ingratitude is related. An opulent city in the west of England, little used to have troops with them, had a regiment sent to be quartered. The principal inhabitants and wealthiest merchants, glad to shew their hospitality and attachment to their sovereign, took the first opportunity to get acquainted with the officers, inviting them to their houses, and shewing every civility in their power. This was, truly, a desirable situation. A merchant extremely easy in his circumstances took so prodigious a liking to one officer in particular, that he gave him an apartment in his own house, and made him, in a manner, absolute master of it, the officer's friends being always welcome to his table. The merchant was a widower, and had only two favorite daughters: the officer, in so comfortable a station, cast his wanton eyes upon them, and, too fatally succeeding ruined them both. -Dreadful return to the merchant's misplaced

friendship!

The consequence of this ungenerous action was, that all officers ever after were shunned as a public nuisance, as a pest to society; nor have the inhabitants, perhaps, yet conquered their aversion to a red coat.

We read in Rapin's History, that during Monmouth's rebellion, in the reign of James II. a certain person, knowing the humane disposition of one Mrs. Gaunt, whose life was one continual exercise of beneficence, fled to her house, where he was concealed and maintained for some time. Hearing, however, of the proclamation which promised an indemnity and reward to those who discovered such as harboured the rebels, he betrayed his benefactress; and such was the spirit of justice and equity which prevailed among the ministers, that he was pardoned and recompensed for his treachery, while she was burnt alive for her charity.

The following instance is also to be found in the same history. Humphry Bannister and his father were both servants to, and raised by, the Duke of Buckingham; who, being driven to abscond, by an unfortunate accident befalling the army he had raised against the usurper, Richard III. he, without footman or page, retired to Bannister's house, near Shrewsbury, as to a place where he had all the reason in the world to expect security. Bannister, however, upon the king's proclamation, promising 1000/ reward to him that should apprehend the duke, betrayed his master to John Merton, High Sheriff of Shropshire, who sent him under a strong guard to Salisbury, where the king then was; and there, in the market-place, the duke was beheaded. But Divine vengeance pursued the traitor Bannister; for, demanding the 1000/ that was the price of his master's blood, King Richard refused to pay it, saying, "He that would be false to so good a master, ought not

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to be encouraged." He was afterwards hanged for manslaughter; his eldest son soon ran mad, and died in a hog-sty; his second became deformed and lame; and his third son was drowned in a small puddle of water. His eldest daughter was pregnant by one of his carters; and his second was seized with a leprosy, whereof she died.

The following barbarious instances are from ancient history.

When Xerxes, King of Persia, was at Celene, a city of Phrygia, Pythius, a Lydian, who had his residence in that city, and, next to Xerxes, was the most opulent prince of those times, entertained him and his whole army with an incredible magnificence, and made him an offer of all his wealth towards defraying the expences of his expedition. Xerxes, supprised and charmed at so generous an offer, had the curiosity to enquire to what sum his riches amounted, Pythius made answer, that, having the design of offering them to his service, he had taken an exact account of them, and that the silver he had by him amounted to 2,000 talents (about 255,000/ sterling,) and the gold to 4,000, 000 of darics (about 1,700,000/ sterling,) wanting 7,000. All this money he offered him, telling him that his revenue was sufficient for the support of his household. Xerxes made him very hearty acknowledgments, and entered into a particular friendship with him, but declined accepting this present. The same prince who had made such obliging offers to Xerxes, having desired a favour of him some time after, that out of his five sons, who served in the army, he would be pleased to leave him the eldest, in order to be a comfort to him

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