There are perfons whom we hate, and others whom we love, we know not why: the first of thefe is an injustice, and the laft a weakness.

In fine, all this will lead you to one great maxim, which I recommend to you above all the reft; this is to confider your confidence as a treasure above all price, and which you may eafily lefe if you ufe it indifcretely it is a thing you owe to none but the king and the duke †, who is the depofitory of all his commands. Should you partake it with a third, it will lose merit with the two first, and you will have no right to expect the trust of the king or of the duke, upon whom your happiness and tranquillity muft hereafter depend.

Let there be no perfon about you, be they ever fo dear to you, who shall have reafon to think that you are without referve in respect to them; for if you impart a fecret, which is not of abfolute neceflity, to any perfon, you characterize that perfon with the name of your favourite, or a confident; the confequence of which is, that from being their mistress you become their flave; they will direct and command you, fometimes according to their intereft, fometimes according to their humours, but never with justice: however, this fhould not hinder you from hearing good advice, without prejudice to perfons, judging only of their sentiments.

As to the reft; you must confider that the voice of the people is the voice of God: therefore you must conduct yourfelf in fuch a manner, as if you were to give an account of your actions to the meanest of your fubjects, and as if the public were to be your judge, fince they will be continually on the watch to obferve you. This has been the opinion of all wife men; it is the public that must render you immortal in your prosperity its cenfure is dangerous, and its approbation to be courted and esteemed.

Confider that a great king is now become your husband; that he gives you his hand, in hopes of finding in you comfort and cafe in all his cares; that you will be the companion of his labours, a faithful friend, a virtuous wife, and a great queen.

Our religion, of which this kingdom is its great fupport, opens its bofom to re

ments.

Regard your religion with all the zeal that is due to it; the goodness of God in a particular manner obliges you to it ; and your own piety is a fecurity to me that you will do fo.

Be not too inquifitive in matters of religion; the doctrine of your catechism is the fafeft; follow that, and avoid fearching into things that are not the province of your fex.

Take care you are not feduced by an outward appearance of fanctity; the world is fo wicked, that religion is continually used as a cloak for ambition and intereft. In these cafes you must moderate your zeal, left it fhould mislead you, and hinder you from feeing those snakes in the grafs. Without entering into useless argument, teach religion by true piety, as our Saviour has commanded us, and correct the manners of your court by your own good example.

Answer the hopes of your subjects by juftice and clemency, by fupporting merit, by extirpating vice, by comforting the afflicted, and by protecting the oppreffed : let thefe duties be your daily employment, and drive from your thoughts all thofe things that may engage you to meddle in the affairs of the government. The wifdom of the king and council will not stand in need of your affistance; and never busy yourself, unless where the glory of God, the perfon of the king, and the fafety of your own people, are immediately concerned.

I give God thanks that I find nothing in you that wants correction; and as I think you are inclined to no vice, I apply my counsel to your virtues. Bounty and

generofity

at any time, of the degree of his dislike; and confequently, his expreffion and converfation is without a clue or standard.

It is clear, that prophane fwearing is one of the most likely methods to fubvert a language, render it unmeaning and barbarous, and injure it at the very root, by confounding those ideas which are intended to be mutually conveyed by it. A late conversation of which I overheard a part, fuggefted to me what I have now faid.-Who could imagine that a man of learning and capacity should be capable of uttering the following exclamation: "May heaven's heaviest vengeance light upon me, if my taylor, a dd infamous bungling hellfire fcoundrel, as he is, has not cut my coat at least an inch of a fide too large, fo help me Ch---ft, G---d---n my blood!" If the gentleman had wanted to convince his friend of fome truth, wherein his own life, or the whole felicity of it had depended, we should then have thought the imprecation exceffively prophane, although the importance of the cafe would have palliated the honour of it. But when you find the matter fo pimping, fo trivial, what an impeachment of his good fenfe? What a contraft to his learning? What a flur upon his delicacy? What a flovenly clownish patch of dirt upon his politenefs? How it detracts from all his qualifications, and at once levels him with the carman and the fcavenger; nay, does it not fink him as much below them, as the deformity becomes more confpicuous? For we may be affured, that genteel folks can never render vice respectable, although they may favour it with their adoption, and decorate it with an air.

Thirdly, The practice of fwearing must give pain to any man of delicacy you converfe with; for the swearer muft believe that the perfon he talks to, doubts his veracity; at leaft, his affeverations ftrongly imply that he believed fo, which will be troublesome, and embarrassing in,converfation. But this is, indeed, so much an age of diffipation, that it is become the vogue to talk for an hour together, without any idea at all, which, by giving our discourses a kind of happy infignificancy, fomewhat remedies the laft-mentioned evil.

The Spectator (if I remember right, for I have not read his paper on the fubject these several years) Humorously supplies the fwearers of his time with a fet of inno

cent expletives, which he fuppofes may answer their purpose, and give them entire fatisfaction; but there are numbers of fwearers in our days, who, having a large ftock of ideas, together with a copious and fluent faculty of expreffions, cannot poffibly stand in need of any expletives at all they can talk with cogency and weight, without even an od's boddikins, or an od's my life; and yet they will fwear--and why? O! Sir--common language is too cold, too heavy; all their fpeeches must be energy and fire; and rather than their speeches fhall want energy and fire, they, with great freedom, call down heaven, and ranfack hell to furnish them; and what about? Why, the taylor has cut a coat too large---the fhoe-black has left an inch of the heel untouched--the chairman has made them stay five feconds longer from the ball; they diflike the comedy of the Jealous Wife; or there is a drop of candle tallow on their stockings.

I have often thought, and have fomewhere seen the thought expreffed, nay, can confirm the truth.of it from a little degree of experience, that a fenfible determina tion, a few calm and ftrong, but fuitable expreffions, with a due exercise of subftantial authority, are fully adequate to the purposes of regulation, amongst our foldiery, and in our ships: for the cuftom of fwearing and curfing is now grown so stale, and all that can poffibly be meant by the moft boisterous and tremendous oaths, known fo well, that they are become very little more than a vox et preterea nibil. I have feen a foldier, after having been' fworn over half an hour, turn flily about, put his tongue in his cheek, and imitate a f--t with his mouth; nor can I doubt, but the greater number of foldiers and feamen,' after they have been a little accustomed to the fwearing difcipline, do all this in their hearts, if not outwardly.

But to conclude feriously, with one word more on the foundation of my first argument.

As a vain, unmeaning, filly repetition of words and phrafes, without any determinate ideas, will, by long habit, confufe and unfettle thofe ideas that we had' been wont to annex to fuch words and phrafes, by degrees leffening our notions of their importance, and rendering us hare dened and unthinking; fo this vain, unmeaning, filly repetition, frequently fprings from a hard unthinking mind, as fruit

from

ideas of things, which he finds vexatiously stepping in between him and the gratification of his paffions.

from a tree. Thus it is fometimes the cause, and fometimes the effects of a diabolical and infenfible temper of mind; and thus the caufe and effect are often refolved into one another: to exemplify, if I hear a man jeft very facetiously about fornication, or adultery, or talk ludicroufly of heaven or hell, I immediately conclude, that he either is, or will be, if his temper of mind meets with no alteration, a debauchee or a fceptic; and that, either his jefts are the genuine product of a heart already debauched, or that he is endeavouring, by treating fuch topics, in fo cayalier a manner, to conquer and abolish his own falutary prejudices, and native

I fhall conclude, with expreffing my wifh, that these few rough drawn paragraphs may be found to have weight enough to deter, at least fome, from a practice fo very contemptible in itself, and fo difagreeable in its confequences; from which no pleasure, without doing violence to language, can be faid to result to the fenfes, nor profit to the purse, and which, therefore, can admit of very little excuse, or palliation.

Plymouth, August 16th, 1761.

GENTLEMEN,

MEN frequently exact from others a

conduct, which they make no scruple of violating themfelves, tho' nothing can be more unreasonable than to make an exception in our own favour, and exclude others from the privileges we assume ourfelves. The tranfaction which I am going to lay before you, is a remarkable inftance of this unaccountable difpofition. Mr. Wilful (for I must beg leave to conceal his real name under that fictitious appellation) had at the age of five and twenty, married a young lady contrary to his father's confent; yet when arrived at the age of fifty, he exerted himself in the moft tyrannical manner imaginable, to force a wife upon his fon, and a husband upon his daughter, for whom they both had the utmoft averfion, and not without reason. The spouse which old Mr. Wilful propofed to his fon, was a rich widow, advanced in years, who had but one eye; the husband he intended for his daughter, was ten years older than himself; but he was of opinion that his great riches could not fail of making his daughter happy, notwithstanding the difparity of their ages; yet he himself had formerly married for love, a young woman, who brought him no acceffion of fortune; so great are the changes that the different periods of life produce in the fame perfon. Young Wilful and his fifter (whom I shall hence

forward call by the name of Leonora) mutually condoled with each other on the perplexity of their fituation, which was greatly aggravated by the affections of both being already fixed upon other objects. Leonora had for fome time conceived a paffion for a young officer, who in perfon and accomplishments had few rivals, though his fortune was not answerable to her's, which the knew would be an infurmountable objection with her father. The beautiful Rofalinda had captivated the heart of young Wilful, but the smallness of her portion had made him fearful of disclosing his passion to his father, even before he had proposed to him the abovementioned difagreeable match. Nothing could furpafs the uneafinefs they felt, at finding themselves not only without hopes of being united to the objects of their love, but daily pressed and importuned to marry the objects of their hatred. They both, however, resolutely declared their refolutions never to give their hands where they could not give their hearts; and their father being at length tired out with their conftancy, defisted from urging as before. Thus was one of their grievances removed, but still they could not be happy, whilft they faw no hopes of arriving at the completion of their wishes. Their converfation, when alone together, confifted entirely in lamenting the cruelty

of