honour fearns to do an ill action. The former confiders vice as fomething that is beneath him, the other as fomething that is offenfive to the Divine Being. The one as what is unbecoming, the other as what is forbidden. Thus Seneca fpeaks in that natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares that were there no God to fee or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of fo mean, so base, and fo vile a nature. I fhall conclude this head with the defcription of honour in the part of young Juba. Honour's a facred tye, the law of kings, The noble mind's diftinguishing perfection, CATO. In the fecond place we are to confider thofe who have mistaken notions of honour, and these are fuch as establish any thing to themfelves for a point of honour, which is contrary either to the laws of God, or their country; who think it more honourable to revenge, than to forgive an injury; who make no fcruple of telling a lye, but would put any man to death who accufes them of it; who are more careful to guard their reputation by their courage than by their virtue. True fortitude is indeed fo becoming in human nature, that he who wants it, fcarce deserves the name of a man; but we find feveral who fo much abuse this notion, that they place the whole idea of honour in a kind of brutal courage; by which means we have had many among us who have called themselves men of honour, who would have been 3 difgrace to a gibbet. In a word, the man who facrifices any duty of a reasonable creature to a prevailing mode or fafhion, who looks upon any thing as honourable that is difpleafing to his Maker, or deftructive to fociety, who thinks himself obliged by this principle to the practice of fome virtues and not of others, is by no means to be reckoned among true men of honour. Timogenes was a lively inftance of one actuated by falfe honour. Timogenes would fmile at a man's jeft who ridiculed his Maker, and at the fame time, run a man through the body who fpoke ill of his friend. Timogenes would have fcorned to have betrayed a fecret, that was intrufted with him, though the fate of his country depended upon the discovery of it. Timogenes took away the life of a young fellow in a duel, for having fpoken ill of Belinda, a lady whom he himfelf had feduced in youth, and betrayed into want and ignominy. To clofe his character, Timogenes after having ruined feveral poor tradefmen's families, who had trusted him, fold his eftate to fatisfy his creditors; but like a man of honour, difpofed of all the money he could make of it, in the paying off his play-debts, or to speak in his own language, his debts of bon our. In the third place, we are to confider thofe perfons, who treat this principle as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule. Men who are profeffedly of no honour, are of a more profligate and abandoned nature than even those who are actuated by falfe notions of it, as there is more hopes of a heretic than of an atheift. These fons of infamy confider honour with old Syphax, in the play before mentioned, as a fine imaginary notion, that leads aftray young unexperienced men, and draws them into real mifchiefs, while they are engaged in the purfuits of a fhadow. Thefe are generally perfons who, in Shakespeare's phrafe, are worn and hackneyed in the ways of men; whofe imaginations are grown callous, and have loft thofe delicate fentiments which are natural to minds that are innocent and undepraved. Such old battered mifcreants ridicule every thing as romantic that comes in competition with their prefent intereft, and treat these perfons as vifionaries who dare ftand up in a corrupt age, for what has not its immediate reward joined to it. The ta lents, intereft, or experience of fuch men, make them very often useful in all parties, and at all times. But whatever wealth and dignities they may arrive at, they ought to confider, that every one stands as a blot in the annals of his country, who arrives at the temple of honour by any other way than through that of virtue. THE GUARDIAN, Vol. II. No. 161. HOPE. HE time prefent feldom affords fufficient employment to the mind of man. Objects of pain or pleasure, love or admiration, do not lie thick enough together in life to keep the foul in conftant action, and fupply an immediate exercife to its faculties. In order, therefore, to remedy this defect, that the mind may not want bufinefs, but always have materials for thinking, she is endowed with certain powers, that can recal what is paffed, and anticipate what is to come. That wonderful faculty which we call the Memory, is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like thofe repofitories in feveral animals that are filled with ftores of their former food, on which they may ruminate when their prefent pasture fails. As the memory relieves the mind in her vacant moments, and prevents any chafms of thought by ideas of what is paft, we have other faculties that agitate and employ her upon what is to come. These are the paffions of Hope and Fear. By these two paffions we reach forward into futu-rity, and bring up to our prefent thoughts objects that lie hid in the remoteft depths of time. We fuffer mifery, and enjoy happincis, before they are in being; we can fet the fun and ftars forward, or lofe fight of them by wandering into thofe retired parts of eternity when heaven and earth fhall be no more. a By the way, who can imagine that the existence of creature is to be circumfcribed by time, whose thoughts are not? But I fall, in this paper, confine myself to that particular paffion which goes by the name of hope. Our actual enjoyments are fo few and tranfent,, that man would be a very miferable being, were he not endowed with this paffion, which gives him a tafte of thofe good things which may poffibly come into his poffeflion. We should hope for every thing that is good, fays the old poet Linus, because there is nothing which ma, not be hoped for, and nothing but what the gods are able to give us. Hope quickens all the still parts of life, and keeps the mind awake in her most remifs and indolent hours. It gives habitual ferenity and good humour. It is a kind of vital heat in the foul, that cheers and gladdens her, when the does not attend to it. It makes pain eafy, and labour pleasant, Befides thefe feveral advantages which rife from hofe, there is another which is 'none of the leaft, and that is, its great efficacy in preferving us from fetting too high a value on prefent enjoyments. The faying of Cejar is very well known. When he had given away all his eftate in gratuities among his friends, one of them asked what he had left for himself to which that great man replied, hope. His natural magnanimity hindered him from prifing what he was certainly poffeffed of, and turned all his thoughts, upon fomething more valuable than he had in view. I queftion not but every reader will draw a moral from this ftory, and apply it to himself without any direction. The old ftory of Pandora's box (which many of the learned believe was formed among the heathens upon the tradition of the fall of man) fhews us how deplorable a ftate they thought the prefent life, without hope: To fet forth the utmoft condition of mifery, they tell us, that our forefather, according to the Pagan theology, had a great veffel prefented him by Pandera: Upon his lifting up the lid of it, fays the fable, there flew out all the calamities and diftémpers incident to men, from which, till that time, they had been altogether exempt. Hope, who had been inclofed in the cup with fo much bad company, inftead of flying off with the reft, ftuck fo close to the lid of it, that it was fhut down upon her. I fhall make but two reflections upon what I have hitherto faid. First, that no kind of life is fo happy as W TATLERS, AND GUAR that which is full of hope, efpecially well grounded, and when the objec alted kind, and in its nature prope fon happy who enjoys it. This p very evident to thofe who confider prefent enjoyments of the most hap infufficient to give him an entire fatisraction anu acquiefcence in them. My next obfervation is this, that a religious life is that which most abounds in a well grounded hope, and fuch an one as is fixed on objects that are capable of making us entirely happy. This hope in a religious man, is much more fure and certain than the hope of any temporal bleffing, as it is ftrengthened not only by reafon, but by faith. It has at the fame time its eye perpetually fixed on that ftate, which implies in the very notion of it the moft full and the moft complete happiness. I have before fhewn how the influence of hope in general fweetens life, and makes our prefent condition fupportable, if not pleasing; but a religious hope has ftill greater advantages. It does not only bear up the mind under her fufferings, but makes her rejoice in them, as they may be the inftruments of procuring her the great and ultimate end of all her hope. Religious hope has likewife this advantage above any other kind of hope, that it is able to revive the ding man, and to fill his mind not only with fecret comfort and refreshment, but fometimes with rapture and transport. He triumphs in his agonies, whilft. the foul fprings forward with delight to the great object which fhe has always had in view, and leaves the body with an expectation of being reunited to her in a glorious and joyful refurrection. Ifhall conclude this effay with thofe emphatical expreffions of a lively hope, which the Pfalmift made ufe of in the midst of thofe dangers and adverfities which furrounded him; for the following paffage has its prefent and perfonal, as well as its future and prophetic fenfe. I have fet the Lord always before me: Because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved: Therefore ma VOL. II. P-2- |