Hor. Why do not you speak more openly, and say that there is no virtue or probity in the world? for all the drift of your discourse is tending to prove that.

Cleo. I have amply declared myself upon this subject already in a former conversation; and I wonder you will lay again to my charge what I once absolutely denied: I never thought that there were no virtuous or religious men; what I differ in with the flatterers of our species, is about the numbers which they contend for; and I am persuaded that you yourself, in reality, do not believe that there are so many virtuous men as you imagine you do.

Hor. How come you to know my thoughts better than I do myself?

Cleo. You know I have tried you upon this head already, when I ludicrously extolled and set a fine gloss on the merit of several callings and professions in the society, from the lowest stations of life to the highest: it then plainly appeared, that, though you have a very high opinion of mankind in general, when we come to particulars, you was as severe, and every whit as censorious as myself. I must observe one thing to you, which is worth consideration. Most, if not all people, are desirous of being thought impartial; yet nothing is more difficult than to preserve our judgment unbiassed, when we are influenced either by our love or our hatred; and how just and equitable soever people are, we see that their friends are seldom so good, or their enemies so bad as they represent them, when they are angry with the one, or highly pleased with the other. For my part, I do not think that, generally speaking, prime ministers are much worse than their adversaries, who for their own interest defame them, and at the same time, move Heaven and earth to be in their places. Let us look out for two persons of eminence in any court of Europe, that are equal in merit and capacity, and as well matched in virtues and vices, but of contrary parties; and whenever we meet with two such, one in favour and the other neglected, we shall always find that whoever is uppermost, and in great employ, has the applause of his party; and if things go tolerably well, his friends will attribute every good success to his conduct, and derive all his actions from laudable motives: the opposite side can discover no virtues in him; they will not allow him to act from any principles but his passions; and if any thing be done amiss, are very sure that it would not have happened if their patron had been in the same post. This is the way of the world. How immensely do often people of the same kingdom differ in the opinion they have of their chiefs and commanders, even when they are successful to admiration! we have been witnesses ourselves that one part of the nation has ascribed the victories of a general entirely to his consummate knowledge in martial affairs, and superlative capacity in action; and maintained that it was impossible for a man to bear all the toils and fatigues he underwent with alacrity, or to court the dangers he voluntarily exposed himself to, if he had not been supported, as well as animated, by the true spirit of heroism, and a most generous love for his country: these, you know, were the sentiments of one part of the nation, whilst the other attributed all his successes to the bravery of his troops, and the extraordinary care that was taken at home to supply his army; and insisted upon it, that from the whole course of his life, it was demonstrable, that he had never been buoyed up or actuated by any other principles than excess of ambition, and an unsatiable greediness after riches.

Hor. I do not know but I may have said so myself. But after all, the Duke of Marlborough was a very great man, an extraordinary genius.

Cleo. Indeed was he, and I am glad to hear you own it at last.

Hor. A propos. I wish you would bid them stop for two or three minutes: some of the horses perhaps may stale the while.

Cleo. No excuses, pray. You command here. Besides, we have time enough.——Do you want to go out?

Hor. No; but I want to set down something, now I think of it, which I have heard you repeat several times. I have often had a mind to ask you for it, and it always went out of my head again. It is the epitaph which your friend made upon the Duke.

Cleo. Of Marlborough? with all my heart. Have you paper?

Hor. I will write it upon the back of this letter; and as it happens, I mended my pencil this morning. How does it begin?

Cleo. Qui belli, aut paucis virtutibus astra petebant.

Hor. Well.

Cleo. Finxerunt homines sæcula prisca Deos.

Hor. I have it. But tell me a whole distich at a time; the sense is clearer.

Hor. That is really a happy thought. Courage and conduct: just the two qualifications he excelled in. What is the next?

Hor.——I thank you. They may go on now. I have seen several things since first I heard this epitaph of you, that are manifestly borrowed from it. Was it never published?

Cleo. I believe not. The first time I saw it was the day the Duke was buried, and ever since it has been handed about in manuscript; but I never met with it in print yet.

Hor. It is worth all his Fable of the Bees, in my opinion.

Cleo. If you like it so well, I can show you a translation of it, lately done by a gentleman of Oxford, if I have not lost it. It only takes in the first and last distich, which indeed contain the main thought: The second does not carry it on, and is rather a digression.

Hor. But it demonstrates the truth of the first in a very convincing manner; and that Mars had no father, and Minerva no mother, is the most fortunate thing a man could wish for, who wanted to prove that the account we have of them is fabulous.

Cleo. Oh, here it is. I do not know whether you can read it; I copied it in haste.

Hor. Very well.

It is very good.

Cleo. Very lively; and what is aimed at in the Latin, is rather more clearly expressed in the English.

Hor. You know I am fond of no English verse but Milton’s. But do not let this hinder our conversation.

Cleo. I was speaking of the partiality of mankind in general, and putting you in mind how differently men judged of actions, according as they liked or disliked the persons that performed them.

Hor. But before that you was arguing against the necessity, which I think there is, for men of great accomplishments and extraordinary qualifications in the administration of public affairs. Had you any thing to add?

Cleo. No; at least I do not remember that I had.

Hor. I do not believe you have an ill design in advancing these notions; but supposing them to be true, I cannot comprehend that divulging them can have any other effect than the increase of sloth and ignorance; for if men may fill the highest places in the government without learning or capacity, genius or knowledge, there is an end of all the labour of the brain, and the fatigue of hard study.

Cleo. I have made no such general assertion; but that an artful man may make a considerable figure in the highest post of the administration, and other great employments, without extraordinary talents, is certain: as to consummate statesmen, I do not believe there ever were three persons upon earth at the same time, that deserved that name. There is not a quarter of the wisdom, solid knowledge, or intrinsic worth in the world that men talk of and compliment one another with; and of virtue or religion there is not an hundredth part in reality of what there is in appearance.

Hor. I allow that those who set out from no better motives, than avarice and ambition, aim at no other ends but wealth and honour; which, if they can but get anywise they are satisfied; but men who act from principles of virtue and a public spirit, take pains with alacrity to attain the accomplishments that will make them capable of serving their country: and if virtue be so scarce, how come there to be men of skill in their professions? for that there are men of learning and men of capacity, is most certain.

Cleo. The foundation of all accomplishments must be laid in our youth, before we are able or allowed to choose for ourselves, or to judge, which is the most profitable way of employing our time. It is to good discipline, and the prudent care of parents and masters, that men are beholden for the greatest part of their improvements; and few parents are so bad as not to wish their offspring might be well accomplished: the same natural affection that makes men take pains to leave their children rich, renders them solicitous about their education. Besides, it is unfashionable, and consequently a disgrace to neglect them. The chief design of parents in bringing up their children to a calling or profession, is to procure them a livelihood. What promotes and encourages arts and sciences, is the reward, money and honour; and thousands of perfections are attained to, that would have had no existence, if men had been less proud or less covetous. Ambition, avarice, and often necessity, are great spurs to industry and application; and often rouse men from sloth and indolence, when they are grown up, whom no persuasions or chastisement of fathers or tutors, made any impression upon in their youth. Whilst professions are lucrative, and have great dignities belonging to them, there will always be men that excel in them. In a large polite nation, therefore, all sorts of learning will ever abound, whilst the people flourish. Rich parents, and such as can afford it, seldom fail bringing up their children to literature: from this inexhaustible spring it is, that we always draw much larger supplies than we stand in need of, for all the callings and professions where the knowledge of the learned languages is required. Of those that are brought up to letters, some neglect them, and throw by their books as soon as they are their own masters; others grow fonder of study, as they increase in years; but the greatest part will always retain a value for what has cost them pains to acquire. Among the wealthy, there will be always lovers of knowledge, as well as idle people: every science will have its admirers, as men differ in their tastes and pleasures; and there is no part of learning but somebody or other will look into it, and labour at it, from no better principles than some men are fox hunters, and others take delight in angling. Look upon the mighty labours of antiquaries, botanists, and the vertuosos in butterflies, cockle-shells, and other odd productions of nature; and mind the magnificent terms they all make use of in their respective provinces, and the pompous names they often give to what others, who have no taste that way, would not think worth any mortal’s notice. Curiosity is often as bewitching to the rich, as lucre is to the poor; and what interest does in some, vanity does in others; and great wonders are often produced from a happy mixture of both. Is it not amazing, that a temperate man should be at the expence of four or five thousand a-year, or, which is much the same thing, be contented to lose the interest of above a hundred thousand pounds, to have the reputation of being the possessor and owner of rarities and knicknacks in a very great abundance, at the same time that he loves money, and continues slaving for it in his old age! It is the hopes either of gain or reputation, of large revenues and great dignities that promote learning; and when we say that any calling, art or science, is not encouraged, we mean no more by it, than that the masters or professors of it are not sufficiently rewarded for their pains, either with honour or profit. The most holy functions are no exception to what I say; and few ministers of the gospel are so disinterested as to have a less regard to the honours and emoluments that are or ought to be annexed to their employment, than they have to the service and benefit they should be of to others; and among those of them that study hard and take uncommon pains, it is not easily proved that many are excited to their extraordinary labour by a public spirit or solicitude for the spiritual welfare of the laity: on the contrary, it is visible, in the greatest part of them, that they are animated by the love of glory and the hopes of preferment; neither is it common to see the most useful parts of learning neglected for the most trifling, when, from the latter, men have reason to hope that they shall have greater opportunities of showing their parts, than offer themselves from the former. Ostentation and envy have made more authors than virtue and benevolence. Men of known capacity and erudition are often labouring hard to eclipse and ruin one another’s glory. What principle must we say two adversaries act from, both men of unquestionable good sense and extensive knowledge, when all the skill and prudence they are masters of are not able to stifle, in their studied performances, and hide from the world, the rancour of their minds, the spleen and animosity they both write with against one another.

Hor. I do not say that such act from principles of virtue.

Cleo. Yet you know an instance of this in two grave divines, men of fame and great merit, of whom each would think himself very much injured, should his virtue be called in question.

Hor. When men have an opportunity, under pretence of zeal for religion, or the public good, to vent their passion, they take great liberties. What was the quarrel?

Cleo. De lana caprina.

Hor. A trifle. I cannot guess yet.

Cleo. About the metre of the comic poets among the ancients.

Hor. I know what you mean now; the manner of scanding and chanting those verses.

Cleo. Can you think of any thing belonging to literature, of less importance, or more useless?

Hor. Not readily.

Cleo. Yet the great contest between them, you see, is which of them understands it best, and has known it the longest. This instance, I think, hints to us how highly improbable it is, though men should act from no better principles than envy, avarice, and ambition, that when learning is once established, any part of it, even the most unprofitable, should ever be neglected in such a large opulent nation as ours is; where there are so many places of honour, and great revenues to be disposed of among scholars.

Hor. But since men are fit to serve in most places with so little capacity, as you insinuate, why should they give themselves that unnecessary trouble of studying hard, and acquiring more learning than there is occasion for?

Cleo. I thought I had answered that already; a great many, because they take delight in study and knowledge.

Hor. But there are men that labour at it with so much application, as to impair their healths, and actually to kill themselves with the fatigue of it.

Cleo. Not so many as there are that injure their healths, and actually kill themselves with hard drinking, which is the most unreasonable pleasure of the two, and a much greater fatigue. But I do not deny that there are men who take pains to qualify themselves in order to serve their country; what I insist upon is, that the number of those who do the same thing to serve themselves with little regard to their country, is infinitely greater. Mr. Hutcheson, who wrote the Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, seems to be very expert at weighing and measuring the quantities of affection, benevolence, &c. I wish that curious metaphysician would give himself the trouble, at his leisure, to weigh two things separately: First, the real love men have for their country, abstracted from selfishness. Secondly, the ambition they have of being thought to act from that love, though they feel none. I wish, I say, that this ingenious gentleman would once weigh these two asunder; and afterwards, having taken in impartially all he could find of either, in this or any other nation, show us in his demonstrative way, what proportion the quantities bore to each other.—Quisque sibi commissus est, says Seneca; and certainly, it is not the care of others, but the care of itself, which nature has trusted and charged every individual creature with. When men exert themselves in an extraordinary manner, they generally do it to be the better for it themselves; to excel, to be talked of, and to be preferred to others, that follow the same business, or court the same favours.

Hor. Do you think it more probable, that men of parts and learning should be preferred, than others of less capacity?

Cleo. Cæteris paribus, I do.

Hor. Then you must allow that there is virtue at least in those who have the disposal of places.

Cleo. I do not say there is not; but there is likewise glory and real honour accruing to patrons for advancing men of merit; and if a person who has a good living in his gift, bestows it upon a very able man, every body applauds him, and every parishioner is counted to be particularly obliged to him. A vain man does not love to have his choice disapproved of, and exclaimed against by all the world, any more than a virtuous man; and the love of applause, which is innate to our species, would alone be sufficient to make the generality of men, and even the greatest part of the most vicious, always choose the most worthy, out of any number of candidates; if they knew the truth, and no stronger motive arising from consanguinity, friendship, interest, or something else, was to interfere with the principle I named.

Hor. But, methinks, according to your system, those should be soonest preferred that can best coax and flatter.

Cleo. Among the learned there are persons of art and address, that can mind their studies without neglecting the the world: these are the men that know how to ingratiate themselves with persons of quality; employing to the best advantage all their parts and industry for that purpose. Do but look into the lives and the deportment of such eminent men, as we have been speaking of, and you will soon discover the end and advantages they seem to propose to themselves from their hard study and severe lucubrations. When you see men in holy orders, without call or necessity, hovering about the courts of princes; when you see them continually addressing and scraping acquaintance with the favourites; when you hear them exclaim against the luxury of the age, and complain of the necessity they are under of complying with it; and at the same time you see, that they are forward, nay eager and take pains with satisfaction, in the way of living, to imitate the beau monde, as far as it is in their power: that no sooner they are in possession of one preferment, but they are ready, and actually soliciting for another, more gainful and more reputable; and that on all emergencies, wealth, power, honour and superiority are the things they grasp at, and take delight in; when, I say, you see these things, this concurrence of evidences, is it any longer difficult to guess at, or rather is there room to doubt of the principles they act from, or the tendency of their labours?

Hor. I have little to say to priests, and do not look for virtue from that quarter.

Cleo. Yet you will find as much of it among divines, as you will among any other class of men; but every where less in reality, than there is in appearance. Nobody would be thought insincere, or to prevaricate; but there are few men, though they are so honest as to own what they would have, that will acquaint us with the true reason why they would have it: therefore the disagreement between the words and actions of men is at no time more conspicuous, than when we would learn from them their sentiments, concerning the real worth of things. Virtue, is without doubt, the most valuable treasure which man can be possessed of; it has every body’s good word; but where is the country in which it is heartily embraced, præmia si tollas? Money, on the other hand, is deservedly called the root of all evil: there has not been a moralist nor a satirist of note, that has not had a fling at it; yet what pains are taken, and what hazards are run to acquire it, under various pretences of designing to do good with it! As for my part, I verily believe, that as an accessary cause, it has done more mischief in the world than any one thing besides: yet it is impossible to name another, that is so absolutely necessary to the order, economy, and the very existence of the civil society; for as this is entirely built upon the variety of our wants, so the whole superstructure is made up of the reciprocal services which men do to each other. How to get these services performed by others, when we have occasion for them, is the grand and almost constant solicitude in life of every individual person. To expect that others should serve us for nothing, is unreasonable; therefore all commerce that men can have together, must be a continual bartering of one thing for another. The feller who transfers the property of a thing, has his own interest as much at heart as the buyer who purchases that property: and, if you want or like a thing, the owner of it, whatever stock or provision he may have of the same, or how greatly soever you may stand in need of it, will never part with it, but for a consideration which he likes better than he does the thing you want. Which way shall I persuade a man to serve me, when the service I can repay him in, is such as he does not want or care for? Nobody who is at peace, and has no contention with any of the society, will do any thing for a lawyer; and a physician can purchase nothing of a man, whose whole family is in perfect health. Money obviates and takes away all those difficulties, by being an acceptable reward for all the services men can do to one another.

Hor. But all men valuing themselves above their worth, every body will over-rate his labour. Would not this follow from your system?

Cleo. It certainly would, and does. But what is to be admired is, that the larger the numbers are in a society, the more extensive they have rendered the variety of their desires, and the more operose the gratification of them is become among them by custom; the less mischievous is the consequence of that evil, where they have the use of money: whereas, without it, the smaller the number was of a society, and the more strictly the members of it, in supplying their wants, would confine themselves to those only that were necessary for their subsistence, the more easy it would be for them to agree about the reciprocal services I spoke of. But to procure all the comforts of life, and what is called temporal happiness, in a large polite nation, would be every whit as practicable without speech, as it would be without money, or an equivalent to be used instead of it. Where this is not wanting, and due care is taken of it by the legislature, it will always be the standard, which the worth of every thing will be weighed by. There are great blessings that arise from necessity; and that every body is obliged to eat and drink, is the cement of civil society. Let men set what high value they please upon themselves, that labour which most people are capable of doing, will ever be the cheapest. Nothing can be dear of which there is great plenty, how beneficial soever it may be to man; and scarcity enhances the price of things much oftener than the usefulness of them. Hence it is evident why those arts and sciences will always be the most lucrative, that cannot be attained to, but in great length of time, by tedious study and close application; or else require a particular genius, not often to be met with. It is likewise evident, to whose lot, in all societies, the hard and dirty labour, which nobody would meddle with, if he could help it, will ever fall: but you have seen enough of this in the Fable of the Bees.

Hor. I have so, and one remarkable saying I have read there on this subject, which I shall never forget. “The poor,” says the author, “have nothing to stir them up to labour, but their wants, which it is wisdom to relieve, but folly to cure.”

Cleo. I believe the maxim to be just, and that it is not less calculated for the real advantage of the poor, than it appears to be for the benefit of the rich. For, among the labouring people, those will ever be the least wretched as to themselves, as well as most useful to the public, that being meanly born and bred, submit to the station they are in with cheerfulness; and contented, that their children should succeed them in the same low condition, inure them from their infancy to labour and submission, as well as the cheapest diet and apparel; when, on the contrary, that sort of them will always be the least serviceable to others, and themselves the most unhappy, who, dissatisfied with their labour, are always grumbling and repining at the meanness of their condition; and, under pretence of having a great regard for the welfare of their children, recommend the education of them to the charity of others; and you shall always find, that of this latter class of poor, the greatest part are idle sottish people, that, leading dissolute lives themselves, are neglectful to their families, and only want, as far as it is in their power, to shake off that burden of providing for their brats from their own shoulders.

Hor. I am no advocate for charity schools; yet I think it is barbarous, that the children of the labouring poor, should be for ever pinned down, they, and all their posterity, to that slavish condition; and that those who are meanly born, what parts or genius soever they might be of, should be hindered and debarred from raising themselves higher.

Cleo. So should I think it barbarous, if what you speak of was done any where, or proposed to be done. But there is no degree of men in Christendom that are pinned down, they and their posterity, to slavery for ever. Among the very lowest sort, there are fortunate men in every country; and we daily see persons, that without education, or friends, by their own industry and application, raise themselves from nothing to mediocrity, and sometimes above it, if once they come rightly to love money and take delight in saving it: and this happens more often to people of common and mean capacities, than it does to those of brighter parts. But there is a prodigious difference between debarring the children of the poor from ever rising higher in the world, and refusing to force education upon thousands of them promiscuously, when they should be more usefully employed. As some of the rich must come to be poor, so some of the poor will come to be rich in the common course of things. But that universal benevolence, that should every where industriously lift up the indigent labourer from his meanness, would not be less injurious to the whole kingdom than a tyrannical power, that should, without a cause, cast down the wealthy from their ease and affluence. Let us suppose, that the hard and dirty labour throughout the nation requires three millions of hands, and that every branch of it is performed by the children of the poor. Illiterate, and such as had little or no education themselves; it is evident, that if a tenth part of these children, by force and design, were to be exempt from the lowest drudgery, either there must be so much work left undone, as would demand three hundred thousand people; or the defect, occasioned by the numbers taken off, must be supplied by the children of others, that had been better bred.

Hor. So that what is done at first out of charity to some, may, at long run, prove to be cruelty to others.

Cleo. And will depend upon it. In the compound of all nations, the different degrees of men ought to bear a certain proportion to each other, as to numbers, in order to render the whole a well proportioned mixture. And as this due proportion is the result and natural consequence of the difference there is in the qualifications of men, and the vicissitudes that happen among them, so it is never better attained to, or preserved, than when nobody meddles with it. Hence we may learn, how the short-sighted wisdom of perhaps well-meaning people, may rob us of a felicity that would flow spontaneously from the nature of every large society, if none were to divert or interrupt the stream.

Hor. I do not care to enter into these abstruse matters; what have you further to say in praise of money?

Cleo. I have no design to speak either for or against it; but be it good or bad, the power and dominion of it are both of vast extent, and the influence of it upon mankind has never been stronger or more general in any empire, state, or kingdom, than in the most knowing and politest ages, when they were in their greatest grandeur and prosperity; and when arts and sciences were the most flourishing in them: Therefore, the invention of money seems to me to be a thing more skilfully adapted to the whole bent of our nature, than any other or human contrivance. There is no greater remedy against sloth or stubbornness; and with astonishment I have beheld the readiness and alacrity with which it often makes the proudest men pay homage to their inferiors: It purchases all services, and cancels all debts; nay, it does more, for when a person is employed in his occupation, and he who sets him to work, a good paymaster, how laborious, how difficult or irksome soever the service be, the obligation is always reckoned to lie upon him who performs it.

Hor. Do not you think, that many eminent men in the learned professions would dissent from you in this?

Cleo. I know very well, that none ought to do it, if ever they courted business, or hunted after employment.

Hor. All you have said is true among mercenary people; but upon noble minds that despise lucre, honour has far greater efficacy than money.

Cleo. The highest titles, and the most illustrious births, are no security against covetousness; and persons of the first quality, that are actually generous and munificent are often as greedy after gain, when it is worth their while, as the most sordid mechanics are for trifles: The year twenty has taught us, how difficult it is to find out those noble minds that despise lucre, when there is a prospect of getting vastly. Besides, nothing is more universally charming than money; it suits with every station, the high, the low, the wealthy, and the poor: whereas, honour has little influence on the mean, slaving people, and rarely affects any of the vulgar; but if it does, money will almost every where purchase honour; nay, riches of themselves are an honour to all those who know how to use them fashionably. Honour, on the contrary, wants riches for its support; without them it is a dead weight that oppresses its owner; and titles of honour, joined to a necessitous condition, are a greater burden together than the same degree of poverty is alone: for the higher a man’s quality is, the more considerable are his wants in life; but the more money he has, the better he is able to supply the greatest extravagancy of them. Lucre is the best restorative in the world, in a literal sense, and works upon the spirits mechanically; for it is not only a spur that excites men to labour, and makes them in love with it, but it likewise gives relief in weariness, and actually supports men in all fatigues and difficulties. A labourer of any sort, who is paid in proportion to his diligence, can do more work than another who is paid by the day or the week, and has standing wages.

Hor. Do not you think, then, that there are men in laborious offices, who, for a fixed salary, discharge their duties with diligence and assiduity?

Cleo. Yes, many; but there is no place or employment in which there are required or expected, that continual attendance and uncommon severity of application, that some men harass and punish themselves with by choice, when every fresh trouble meets with a new recompence; and you never saw men so entirely devote themselves to their calling, and pursue business with that eagerness, dispatch, and perseverance in any office of preferment, in which the yearly income is certain and unalterable, as they often do in those professions where the reward continually accompanies the labour, and the fee immediately either precedes the service they do to others, as it is with the lawyers, or follows it, as it is with the physicians. I am sure you have hinted at this in our first conversation yourself.

Hor. Here is the castle before us.

Cleo. Which I suppose you are not sorry for.

Hor. Indeed I am, and would have been glad to have heard you speak of kings and other sovereigns with the same candour, as well as freedom, with which you have treated prime ministers, and their envious adversaries. When I see a man entirely impartial, I shall always do him that justice, as to think, that if he is not in the right in what he says, at least he aims at truth. The more I examine your sentiments, by what I see in the world, the more I am obliged to come into them; and all this morning I have said nothing in opposition to you, but to be better informed, and to give you an opportunity to explain yourself more amply. I am your convert, and shall henceforth look upon the Fable of the Bees very differently from what I did; for though, in the Characteristics, the language and the diction are better, the system of man’s sociableness is more lovely and more plausible, and things are set off with more art and learning; yet in the other there is certainly more truth, and nature is more faithfully copied in it almost every where.

Cleo. I wish you would read them both once more, and, after that, I believe you will say that you never saw two authors who seem to have wrote with more different views. My friend, the author of the Fable, to engage and keep his readers in good humour, seems to be very merry, and to do something else, whilst he detects the corruption of our nature; and having shown man to himself in various lights, he points indirectly at the necessity, not only of revelation and believing, but likewise of the practice of Christianity manifestly to be seen in mens lives.

Hor. I have not observed that: Which way has he done it indirectly?

Cleo. By exposing, on the one hand, the vanity of the world, and the most polite enjoyments of it; and, on the other, the insufficiency of human reason and heathen virtue to procure real felicity: for I cannot see what other meaning a man could have by doing this in a Christian country, and among people that all pretend to seek after happiness.

Hor. And what say you of Lord Shaftsbury?

Cleo. First, I agree with you that he was a man of erudition, and a very polite writer; he has displayed a copious imagination, and a fine turn of thinking, in courtly language and nervous expressions: But, as on the one hand, it must be confessed, that his sentiments on liberty and humanity are noble and sublime, and that there is nothing trite or vulgar in the Characteristics; so, on the other, it cannot be denied, that the ideas he had formed of the goodness and excellency of our nature, were as romantic and chimerical as they are beautiful and amiable; that he laboured hard to unite two contraries that can never be reconciled together, innocence of manners, and worldly greatness; that to compass this end, he favoured deism, and, under pretence of lashing priestcraft and superstition, attacked the Bible itself; and, lastly, that by ridiculing many passages of Holy Writ, he seems to have endeavoured to sap the foundation of all revealed religion, with design of establishing Heathen virtue on the ruins of Christianity.

FINIS.