been taught to avoid fraud by having often fuffered or feen treachery, or he must derive his judgment from the consciousness of his own difpofition, and impute to others the fame inclinations, which he feels predominant in himself.

To learn caution by turning our eyes upon life, and obferving the arts by which negligence is furprized, timidity overborne, and credulity amused, requires either great latitude of converfe and long acquaintance with bufinefs, or uncommon activity of vigilance, and acuteness of penetration. When, therefore, a young man, not distinguished by vigour of intellect, comes into the world full of fcruples and diffidence; makes a bargain with many provifional limitations; hesitates in his answer to a common question, left more fhould be intended than he can immediately discover; has a long reach in detecting the projects of his acquaintance; confiders every carefs as an act of hypocrify, and feels neither gratitude nor affection from the tenderness of his friends, because he believes no one to have any real tendernefs but for himself; whatever expectations this early fagacity may raise of his future eminence or riches, I can feldom forbear to confider him as a wretch incapable of generofity or benevolence; as a villain early completed beyond the need of common opportunities and gradual temptations.

Upon men of this class inftruction and admonition are generally thrown away, because they confider artifice and deceit as proofs of understanding; they are misled at the fame time by the two great feducers of the world, vanity and intereft, and not only look upon those who act with openness and conVOL. V. fidence,

E

fidence, as condemned by their principles to obfcurity and want, but as contemptible for narrowness of comprehenfion, fhortnefs of views, and flowness of contrivance.

The world has been long amufed with the mention of policy in publick transactions, and of art in private affairs; they have been confidered as the effects of great qualities, and as unattainable by men of the common level: yet I have not found I have not found many performances either of art or policy, that required fuch stupendous efforts of intellect, or might not have been effected by falfehood and impudence, without the affiftance of any other powers. To profess what he does not mean, to promise what he cannot perform, to flatter ambition with profpects of promotion, and mifery with hopes of relief, to footh pride with appearances of fubmiffion, and appease enmity by blandifhments and bribes, can furely imply nothing more or greater than a mind devoted wholly to its own purposes, a face that cannot blush, and a heart that cannot feel.

These practices are fo mean and base, that he who finds in himself no tendency to use them, cannot eafily believe that they are confidered by others with less deteftation; he therefore fuffers himself to flumber in false fecurity, and becomes a prey to those who applaud their own fubtilty, because they know how to fteal upon his fleep, and exult in the fuccefs which they could never have obtained, had they not attempted a man better than themselves, who was hindered from obviating their ftratagems, not by folly, but by innocence.

Sufpicion

Sufpicion is, indeed, a temper fo uneafy and reftlefs, that it is very juftly appointed the concomitant of guilt. It is faid, that no torture is equal to the inhibition of fleep long continued; a pain, to which the state of that man bears a very exact analogy, who dares never give reft to his vigilance and circumfpection, but confiders himself as furrounded by fecret foes, and fears to entrust his children, or his friend, with the fecret that throbs in his breaft, and the anxieties that break into his face. To avoid, at this expence, thofe evils to which eafiness and friendship might have expofed him, is furely to buy fafety at too dear a rate, and, in the language of the Roman fatirist, to fave life by lofing all for which a wife man would live *

When in the diet of the German empire, as Camerarius relates, the princes were once difplaying their felicity, and each boafting the advantages of his own dominions, one who poffeffed a country not remarkable for the grandeur of its cities, or the fertility of its foil, rofe to fpeak, and the rest listened between pity and contempt, till he declared, in honour of his territories, that he could travel through them without a guard, and if he was weary, fleep in fafety upon the lap of the firft man whom he fhould meet; a commendation which would have been ill exchanged for the boast of palaces, paftures, or ftreams.

Sufpicion is not lefs an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally fufpicious, and he that becomes fufpicious will quickly be corrupt. It is too common for us to learn the frauds by which ourselves have fuffered; men who

* Propter vitam vivendi perdere caufas.

are once perfuaded that deceit will be employed against them, fometimes think the fame arts justified by the neceffity of defence. Even they whofe virtue is too well established to give way to example, or be fhaken by sophistry, must yet feel their love of mankind diminished with their efteem, and grow lefs zealous for the happiness of those by whom they imagine their own happiness endangered.

Thus we find old age, upon which suspicion has been strongly impreffed, by long intercourse with the world, inflexible and fevere, not easily softened by fubmiffion, melted by complaint, or fubdued by fupplication. Frequent experience of counterfeited miferies, and diffembled virtue, in time overcomes that difpofition to tenderness and fympathy, which is fo powerful in our younger years; and they that happen to petition the old for compaffion or affiftance, are doomed to languish without regard, and suffer for the crimes of men who have formerly been found undeferving or ungrateful.

Hiftorians are certainly chargeable with the depravation of mankind, when they relate without cenfure thofe ftratagems of war by which the virtues of an enemy are engaged to his deftruction. A fhip comes before a port, weather-beaten and fhattered, and the crew implore the liberty of repairing their breaches, fupplying themselves with neceffaries, or burying their dead. The humanity of the inhabitants inclines them to confent; the ftrangers enter the town with weapons concealed, fall fuddenly upon their benefactors, deftroy thofe that make refiftance, and become mafters of the place; they return home rich with plunder, and their fuccefs is recorded to encourage imitation.

But

But furely war has its laws, and ought to be conducted with fome regard to the univerfal interest of man. Thofe may juftly be pursued as enemies to the community of nature, who fuffer hoftility to vacate the unalterable laws of right, and purfue their private advantage by means, which, if once established, must deftroy kindness, cut off from every man all hopes of affiftance from another, and fill the world with perpetual fufpicion and implacable malevolence. Whatever is thus gained ought to be restored, and those who have conquered by fuch treachery may be juftly denied the protection of their native country.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him whom he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which conftitutes not only the ease but the existence of fociety. He that faffers by impofture has too often his virtue more impaired than his fortune. But as it is neceffary not to invite robbery by fupinenefs, fo it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by fufpicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be fometimes cheated than not to trust.