----Sanctus haberi
Justitiaeque tenax factis dictisque mereris,
Adnosco procerem. JUV. Sat. Lib. viii. 24.
Convince the world that you're devout and true;
Be just in all you say, and all you do;
Whatever be your birth, you're sure to be
A peer of the first magnitude to me. STEPNEY.
BOYLE has observed, that the excellency of
manufactures, and the facility of labour, would
be much promoted, if the various expedients and
contrivances which lie concealed in private hands,
were by reciprocal communications made generally
known; for there are few operations that are not
performed by one or other with some peculiar
advantages, which, though singly of little
importance, would, by conjunction and concurrence, open
new inlets to knowledge, and give new powers to
diligence.
There are, in like manner, several moral
excellencies distributed among the different classes of a
community. It was said by Cujacius, that he never
read more than one book by which he was not
instructed; and he that shall inquire after virtue
with ardour and attention, will seldom find a man
by whose example or sentiments he may not be
improved.
Every profession has some essential and appropriate
virtue, without which there can be no hope
of honour or success, and which, as it is more or less
cultivated, confers within its sphere of activity
different degrees of merit and reputation. As the
astrologers range the subdivisions of mankind under
the planets which they suppose to influence their
lives, the moralist may distribute them according
to the virtues which they necessarily practise, and
consider them as distinguished by prudence or fortitude,
diligence or patience.
So much are the modes of excellence settled by
time and place, that men may be heard boasting in
one street of that which they would anxiously conceal
in another. The grounds of scorn and esteem,
the topicks of praise and satire, are varied according
to the several virtues or vices which the course of
life has disposed men to admire or abhor; but he who
is solicitous for his own improvement, must not be
limited by local reputation, but select from every
tribe of mortals their characteristical virtues, and
constellate in himself the scattered graces which
shine single in other men.
The chief praise to which a trader aspires is that
of punctuality, or an exact and rigorous observance
of commercial engagements; nor is there any vice of
which he so much dreads the imputation, as of
negligence and instability. This is a quality which the
interest of mankind requires to be diffused through
all the ranks of life, but which many seem to consider
as a vulgar and ignoble virtue, below the
ambition of greatness or attention of wit, scarcely
requisite among men of gaiety and spirit, and sold
at its highest rate when it is sacrificed to a frolick or
a jest.
Every man has daily occasion to remark what
vexations arise from this privilege of deceiving one
another. The active and vivacious have so long
disdained the restraints of truth, that promises and
appointments have lost their cogency, and both parties
neglect their stipulations, because each concludes
that they will be broken by the other.
Negligence is first admitted in small affairs, and
strengthened by petty indulgences. He that is not
yet hardened by custom, ventures not on the violation
of important engagements, but thinks himself
bound by his word in cases of property or danger,
though he allows himself to forget at what time he
is to meet ladies in the park, or at what tavern his
friends are expecting him.
This laxity of honour would be more tolerable, if
it could be restrained to the play-house, the
ballroom, or the card-table; yet even there it is
sufficiently troublesome, and darkens those moments
with expectation, suspense, and resentment, which
are set aside for pleasure, and from which we naturally
hope for unmingled enjoyment, and total relaxation.
But he that suffers the slightest breach in
his morality, can seldom tell what shall enter it, or
how wide it shall be made; when a passage is open,
the influx of corruption is every moment wearing
down opposition, and by slow degrees deluges the
heart.
Aliger entered the world a youth of lively
imagination, extensive views, and untainted principles.
His curiosity incited him to range from place to
place, and try all the varieties of conversation; his
elegance of address and fertility of ideas gained him
friends wherever he appeared; or at least he found
the general kindness of reception always shown to a
young man whose birth and fortune give him a
claim to notice, and who has neither by vice nor
folly destroyed his privileges. Aliger was pleased
with this general smile of mankind, and was industrious
to preserve it by compliance and officiousness,
but did not suffer his desire of pleasing to vitiate his
integrity. It was his established maxim, that a
promise is never to be broken; nor was it without
long reluctance that he once suffered himself to be
drawn away from a festal engagement by the
importunity of another company.
He spent the evening, as is usual in the rudiments
of vice, in perturbation and imperfect enjoyment,
and met his disappointed friends in the morning
with confusion and excuses. His companions, not
accustomed to such scrupulous anxiety, laughed at his
uneasiness, compounded the offence for a bottle,
gave him courage to break his word again, and again
levied the penalty. He ventured the same experiment
upon another society, and found them equally
ready to consider it as a venial fault, always incident
to a man of quickness and gaiety; till, by degrees,
he began to think himself at liberty to follow the
last invitation, and was no longer shocked at the
turpitude of falsehood. He made no difficulty to
promise his presence at distant places, and if
listlessness happened to creep upon him, he would sit at
home with great tranquillity, and has often sunk to
sleep in a chair, while he held ten tables in continual
expectations of his entrance.
It was so pleasant to live in perpetual vacancy,
that he soon dismissed his attention as an useless
incumbrance, and resigned himself to carelessness
and dissipation, without any regard to the future
or the past, or any other motive of action than the
impulse of a sudden desire, or the attraction of
immediate pleasure. The absent were immediately
forgotten, and the hopes or fears felt by others, had
no influence upon his conduct. He was in speculation
completely just, but never kept his promise to
a creditor; he was benevolent, but always deceived
those friends whom he undertook to patronise or
assist; he was prudent, but suffered his affairs to be
embarrassed for want of regulating his accounts at
stated times. He courted a young lady, and when
the settlements were drawn, took a ramble into the
country on the day appointed to sign them. He resolved
to travel, and sent his chests on shipboard,
but delayed to follow them till he lost his passage.
He was summoned as an evidence in a cause of great
importance, and loitered on the way till the trial
was past. It is said that when he had, with great
expense, formed an interest in a borough, his opponent
contrived, by some agents who knew his temper,
to lure him away on the day of election.
His benevolence draws him into the commission
of a thousand crimes, which others less kind or civil
would escape. His courtesy invites application; his
promises produce dependance; he has his pockets
filled with petitions, which he intends some time to
deliver and enforce, and his table covered with letters
of request, with which he purposes to comply; but
time slips imperceptibly away, while he is either idle
or busy; his friends lose their opportunities, and
charge upon him their miscarriages and calamities.
This character, however contemptible, is not
peculiar to Aliger. They whose activity of imagination
is often shifting the scenes of expectation, are
frequently subject to such sallies of caprice as make all
their actions fortuitous, destroy the value of their
friendship, obstruct the efficacy of their virtues, and
set them below the meanest of those that persist in
their resolutions, execute what they design, and
perform what they have promised.