through him, fuch futility cannot but excite a mixture of ridicule and compasfion.

There is not on earth a more deluded creature, than the perfon who is bewitched with this kind of Pride; efpecially if his power and fortune be fuch as to make him either courted or feared. In that fituation, he is condemned never to hear truth. Friendship can only dwell with Confi-. dence: but this he banishes; and Sincerity retires, or is reftrained: Advice dares not. approach: Reproof and Remonftrance are out of the queftion: Submiffion cringes; Dependence fawns; Adulation" calls " evil good, and darkness light." If any, whofe circumftances or whofe fouls fet them above fuch fervility, look grave and are filent, their behaviour is conftrued into conviction and affent. Is this the road to amendment, or edification? In reality, young men of rank and affluence are, to a philofophic eye, objects of pity, from

F

the very causes for which they are com-
monly envied. Every thing conspires to
blind and betray them. But then it should
be confidered, that the victory will be
more glorious as it is more difficult. The
few who conquer fuch dangerous fnares,
and without elation poffefs themselves of
the honours of virtue, are heroes indeed.
Perhaps we might go fo far as to say, that
Humility gives the higheft proofs of he-
roism, in overcoming a temptation by.
which not only human, but angelic be-
ings have been vanquished. Of this we
are fure, that, if cultivated on the prin-
ciples fet forth in the beginning, which
are I believe her genuine principles, fhe
is attended with a greatnefs utterly un-
known to Pride, though the latter is perpe-
tually affecting it, while the latter affects
nothing, and wears what is natural to her,
the plainest aspect imaginable. She re-
fembles a modeft woman, who is willing
to be feen always with the fame counte-
nance which God gave her, whether more

or lefs ordinary; as the other may be compared to fome females of a different character, who are continually disguifing their faces with paint. The former, having no defigns on mankind, is fimple and fincere: the latter, intent on cheating them out of their good opinion, is full of artifice and diffimulation. But, depend upon it, Gentlemen, nothing that is fictitious in life or manners can be truly noble; and those are always the most dignified minds, that are the leaft dependent on appearances.

It is known that the pettieft advantages of form, or ornament, or fortune, or rank, or reputation, or influence, or authority, or figure, are fufficient to elate the childifh. fpirit of Pride. She indeed can heighten them into any fize in her own imagination. Nay, like a lunatic as fhe is, fhe can deck herself in vifionary fplendors, when nothing is feen by the spectators but folly, rags, and a fceptre of ftraw. Humility, on the other hand, judges too foundly to VOL. II.

X

exult in the highest privileges which this world can confer. Thofe of a corporeal kind, the well knows, are no marks of merit, being wholly the gift of Nature, and often enjoyed by the moft worthless. The faireft and the strongest body, fhe justly reflects, may foon be enfeebled and defaced by fickness, or pain, or accident; and if, by an uncommon felicity, it should efcape all thefe, it muft yet in a few years be impaired and fhrivelled by age; till at Jaft it finks under the ftroke of death, turns to an object of loathing, and is buried out of fight, in filence and oblivion. Man, fhe obferves, is of all creatures the moft helpless at his birth; an event, which he feems indeed by his cries immediately after to deplore: his infancy is the moft tedious and dependent in that, and in his youth, he is expofed to the greatest number of dangers: through every period of life he is liable to the greatest variety of diseases from his make, of injuries from the elements, of fufferings from

every thing around him. Whatever preeminence he may poffefs above the animal creation upon other accounts, he is doomed to pay a heavy tax for it, in the uneafy recollections, the anxious cares, the alarming apprehenfions, the nameless perplexities, humiliations, and forrows, from which even the best minds are not entirely secure; and, were it poffible to glide through his destined course with perfect tranquillity and fatisfaction, ftill the end of it is connected with circumftances fo fadly mortifying, as were alone a decifive proof, that "Pride was not made for man.” Humility can never wonder fufficiently, that the fpectacles of a death-bed and a grave do not kill the feeds of vanity in every human breaft; or that any who have witneffed the wan countenance, the hollow eyes, the cold fweats, the convulfive throes, of diffolving Nature, who have heard the labouring breath, the deep sighs, and the expiring groan, or who have beheld comeliness and vigour transformed