evident to the most superficial observer; since a nation is nothing but a collection of individuals, and the manners of individuals are frequently determined by these causes. As poverty and hard labour debase the minds of the common people, and render them unfit for any science and ingenious profession, so where any government becomes very oppressive to all its subjects, it must have a proportional effect on their temper and genius, and must banish all the liberal arts from amongst them.

The same principle of moral causes fixes the characters of different professions, and alters even the disposition which the particular members receive from the hand of nature. A soldier and a priest are different characters in all nations and all ages, and this difference is founded on circumstances, whose operation is external

and unalterable.

The uncertainty of their life makes soldiers lavish and generous, as well as brave their idleness, as well as the large societies which they form in camps or garrisons, inclines them to pleasure and gallantry; by their frequent change of company they acquire good breeding and an openness of behaviour; being employed only against a public and open enemy, they become candid, honest, and undesigning; and as they use more the labour of the body than the mind, they are commonly thoughtless and ignorant.

"Tis a trite but not altogether a false maxim, that priests of all religions are the same; and though the character of the profession will not in every instance prevail over the personal character, yet is it sure always to predominate with the greater number. For as chemists observe, that spirits when raised to a certain height are all the same, from whatever materials they be extracted; so these men being elevated above humanity, acquire an uniform character which is entirely their own, and which is in my opinion, generally speaking, not the most amiable that is to be met with in human society; it is in most points opposite to that of a soldier, as is the way of life from which it is derived. Hume's Essays.

§ 110. Chastity an additional Ornament to Beauty.

There is no charm in the female sex, that can supply the place of virtue. Without innocence beauty is unlovely, and quality contemptible; good-breeding dege nerates into wantonness, and wit into im

pudence. It is observed, that all the vir tues are represented by both painters and statuaries under female shapes; but if any one of them has a more particular title to that sex, it is Modesty. I shall leave it to the divines to guard them against the opposite vice, as they may be overpowered by temptations; it is sufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led astray by instinct. Spectator.

111. Chastity a valuable Virtue in a

Man.

But as I am now talking to the world yet untainted, I will venture to recommend chastity as the noblest male qualification.

It is, methinks, very unreasonable, that the difficulty of attaining all other good habits, is what makes them honourable; but in this case the very attempt is be come very ridiculous: but in spite of all the raillery of the world, truth is still truth, and will have beauties inseparable from it. I should, upon this occasion, bring examples of heroic chastity, were I not afraid of having my paper thrown away by the modish part of the town, who go no farther, at best, than the mere absence of ill, and are contented to be rather irreproach able than praise-worthy. In this particular, a gentleman in the court of Cyrus reported to his majesty the charms and beauty of Panthea; and ended his pane gyric by telling him, that since he was at leisure, he would carry him to visit her. But that prince, who is a very great man to this day, answered the pimp, because he was a man of quality, without roughness, and said with a smile, " If I should visit her upon your introduction, now I have leisure, I don't know but I might go again upon her own invitation when I ought to be better employed." But when I cast about all the instances which I have met with in all my reading, I find not one so generous, so honest, and so noble, as that of Joseph in holy writ. When his master had trusted him so unreservedly (to speak it in the emphatical manner of the scrip ture) "He knew not aught he had, save the bread which he did eat," he was so unhappy as to appear irresistibly beautiful to his mistress; but when this shameless woman proceeds to solicit him, how gal lant is his answer!" Behold my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and hath committed all that he hath to my hand; there is none greater in the house than 1, neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art

his wife." The same argument, which a base mind would have made to itself for committing the evil, was to this brave man the greatest motive for forbearing it, that he could do it with impunity: the malice and falsehood of the disappointed woman naturally arose on that occasion, and there is but a short step from the practice of virtue to the hatred of it. It would therefore be worth serious consideration in both sexes, and the matter is of importance enough to them, to ask themselves whether they would change lightness of heart, indolence of mind, cheerful meals, untroubled slumbers, and gentle dispositions, for a constant pruriency which shuts out all things that are great or indifferent, clouds the imagination with insensibility and prejudice to all manner of delight, but that which is common to all creatures that extend their species ?

A loose behaviour, and an inattention to every thing that is serious, flowing from some degree of this petulancy, is observable in the generality of the youth of both sexes in this age. It is the one common face of most public meetings, and breaks in upon the sobriety, I will not say severity, that we ought to exercise in churches. The pert boys and flippant girls are but faint followers of those in the same inclinations at more advanced years. I know not who can oblige them to mend their manners; all that I pretend to, is to enter my protest, that they are neither fine gentlemen nor fine ladies for this behaviour. As for the portraitures which I would propose, as the images of agreeable men and women, if they are not imitated or regarded, I can only answer, as I remember Mr. Dryden did on the like occasion, when a young fellow, just come from the play of Cleomenes, told him, in raillery, against the continency of his principal character; If I had been alone with a lady, I should not have passed my time like your Spartan: "That may be," answered the bard with a very grave "but give me leave to tell you, Sir, you Guardian.

are no hero."

face;

$112. The Characters of Gamesters.

The whole tribe of gamesters may be ranked under two divisions: Every man who makes carding, dicing, and betting his daily practice, is either a dupe or a sharper; two characters equally the objects of envy and admiration. The dupe

is generally a person of great fortune and
weak intellects:

"Who will as tenderly be led by th' nose,
SHAKESPEARE.
"As asses are."

Ile plays, not that he has any delight in
cards and dice, but because it is the fa-
shion; and if whist or hazard are pro-
posed, he will no more refuse to make
one at the table, than among a set of hard
drinkers, he would object drinking his
glass in turn, because he is not dry.

There are some few instances of men of

sense, as well as family and fortune, who'
have been dupes and bubbles. Such an
unaccountable itch of play has seized
them, that they have sacrificed every thing
to it, and have seemed wedded to seven's
the main, and the odd trick. There is
not a more melancholy object than a gen-
tleman of sense thus infatuated. He makes

himself and family a prey to a gang of vil-
lains more infamous than highwaymen ;
and perhaps, when his ruin is completed,
he is glad to join with the very scoundrels
that destroyed him, and live upon the spoil
of others, whom he can draw into the
same follies that proved so fatal to him-
self.

Here we may take a survey of the cha-
racter of a sharper; and that he may have
no room to complain of foul play, let us
begin with his excellences. You will per-
haps be startled, Mr. Town, when I men-
tioned the excellences of a sharper; but a
gamester, who makes a decent figure in
the world, must be endued with many
amiable qualities, which would undoubt-
edly appear with great lustre, were they
not eclipsed by the odious character af-
fixed to his trade. In order to carry on
the common business of his profession, he
must be a man of quick and lively parts,
attended with a stoical calmness of tem-
per, and a constant presence of mind. He
must smile at the loss of thousands; and
is not to be discomposed, though ruin
As he is to live
stares him in the face.

among the great he must not want polite-
ness and affability; he must be submis-
sive, but not servile; he must be master of
an ingenuous liberal air, and have a seem-
ing openness of behaviour.

These must be the chief accomplish-
ments of our hero; but lest I should be
accused of giving too favourable a like.
ness of him, now we have seen his outside,
let us take a view of his heart. There
we shall find avarice the main spring that

SH

moves

moves the whole machine. Every gamester is eaten up with avarice; and when this passion is in full force, it is more strongly predominant than any other. It conquers even lust; and conquers it more effectually than age. At sixty we look at a fine woman with pleasure, but when cards and dice have engrossed our attention, women and all their charms are slighted at five-and-twenty. A thorough gamester renounces Venus and Cupid for Plutus and Ames-ace, and owns no mistress of his heart except the queen of trumps. His insatiable avarice can only be gratified by hypocrisy so that all those specious virtues already mentioned, and which, if real, might be turned to the benefit of mankind, must be directed in a gamester towards the destruction of his fellow-creatures. His quick and lively parts serve only to instruct and assist him in the most dexterous method of packing the cards and cogging the dice; his fortitude, which enables him to lose thousands without emotion, must often be practised against the stings and reproaches of his conscience, and his liberal deportment and affected openness is a specious veil to recommend and conceal the blackest villainy.

It is now necessary to take a second survey of his heart; and as we have seen its vices, let us consider its miseries. The covetous man, who has not sufficient courage or inclination to encrease his fortune by bets, cards, or dice, but is contented to hoard up thousands by thefts less public, or by cheats less liable to uncertainty, lives in a state of perpetual suspicion and terror: but the avaricious fears of the gamester are infinitely greater. He is constantly to wear a mask; and like Monsieur St. Croix, coadjuteur to that famous empoisonneuse, Madame Brinvillier, if his mask falls off, he runs the hazard of being suffocated by the stench of his own poisons. I have seen some examples of this sort not many years ago at White's. I am uncertain whether the wretches are still alive; but if they are still alive, they breathe like toads under ground, crawling amidst old walls, and paths long since unfrequented.

But supposing that the sharper's hypocrisy remains undetected, in what a state of mind must that man be, whose fortune depends upon the insincerity of his heart, the disingenuity of his behaviour, and the false bias of his dice! What sensations

muust he suppress, when he is obliged to

smile, although he is provoked; when he must look serene in the height of despair; and when he must act the stoic, without the consolation of one virtuous sentiment, or one moral principle! How unhappy must he be, even in that situation from which he hopes to reap most benefit: I mean amidst stars, garters, and the va rious herds of nobility! Their lordships are not always in a humour to play: they choose to laugh; they choose to joke; in the mean while our hero must patiently await the good hour, and must not only join in the laugh, and applaud the joke, but must humour every turn and caprice to which that set of spoiled children, called bucks of quality, are liable. Surely his brother Thicket's employment, of sauntering on horseback in the wind and rain till the Reading coach passes through Smallberry-green, is the more eligible, and no less honest occupation.

The sharper has also frequently the mortification of being thwarted in his de signs. Opportunities of fraud will not for ever present themselves. The false dice cannot be constantly produced, nor the packed cards always be placed upon the table. It is then our gamester is in the greatest danger. But even then, when he is in the power of fortune, and has no thing but mere luck and fair play on his side, he must stand the brunt, and perhaps give away his last guinea, as coolly as he would lend a nobleman a shilling.

Our hero is now going off the stage, and his catastrophe is very tragical. The next news we hear of him is his death, atchieved by his own hand, and with his own pistol. An inquest is bribed, he is buried at midnight-and forgotten before sun-rise.

These two portraits of a sharper, where in I have endeavoured to shew different likenesses in the same man, put me in mind of an old print, which I remember at Oxford, of Count Guiscard. At first sight he was exhibited in a full-bottomed wig, a hat and a feather, embroidered cloaths, diamond buttons, and the full court dress of those days; but by pulling a string the folds of the paper were shifted, the face only remained, a new body came forward, and Count Guiscard appeared to be a devil. Connoisseur.

$118. The TATLER's Advice to his Sister

Jenny; a good Lesson for young Ladica. My brother Tranquillus being gone out of town for some days, my sister Jenny sent