remorse. When the apparatus shall hereafter be withdrawn, and the machinery of the passions taken down; seeing them as they are, (a tyrant seeing his bloody acts, a slave trader his cruelties, an undutiful child the anguish of parents, a licentious author his corrupting taint) may in part constitute the state of retribution.

§

HYPOCRISY has been imputed to the bashful, and they might examine if their temper leads them to dissemble, to conceal their sentiments, or to chime in with those of others. The bashful man, who is careless to a fault in money-matters, commits another fault by counterfeiting attention to them, that he may not pass for a fool, as he sometimes counterfeits hardness to conceal the softness of his heart, and with affected indifference covers strong affection.

If he suspects a plot to surprise his sensibility, he dissembles in order to avoid it. When questioned about his motives, he does not always tell the true ones, and finds it safer to give no account of his matters. In whatever way dissimulation is insinuated, adhere with sedulous self-inspection and self-denial to simplicity and godly sincerity. Spinoza, whose life is more

edifying than his writings, was put out of the synagogue because he would not dissemble, and refused a professorship to avoid temptation.

The cloak of hypocrisy wears out, and notorious inconsistence makes even the impudent blush. "I have known (says Colley

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Cibber) good parts in a play thrown up, be"cause they recalled what the actor wished "be forgotten."

THE bashful, when in stations exposed to popular breath, must fence against adulation and obloquy. The flood of praise and censure daily poured out on warriors, and statesmen, and philosophers, usually flows from ignorance. A judge can bear to be evil spoken of by those whose villany he has detected and punished: Yet his natural temper will suggest caution in doubtful cases, as in the case of blasphemy. "In the statute, the "exception of distraction is expressly men"tioned; though such state of mind, on the "common principles of law, would excuse in "the case of any crime. This, therefore, is "a humane hint to the judge, to pay parti"cular attention to the person's state of

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"mind who is accused of blasphemy; that "being a crime which a man, in his right "senses, can scarcely be supposed capable of committing*." The same temper makes him cautious in administering oaths. "Few "branches of judicial duty are of more delicacy, or require a sounder discretion, and "greater caution than thist."

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If a conscientious preacher of righteousness be defamed as heterodox, he adheres to the truth as it is in Christ, teaches sound doctrine to those who will endure it, is meek and kind to those who oppose themselves, exhibits a mind superior to the censure and praise of men, follows his master through good report and through bad report. Christ did not cease to be useful when the multitude forsook and followed him no more, and when he gave an option to the apostles, "Will ye also go away?" Nor was his ministry less edifying when the people cried, crucify him, than when they cried Hosannah in the highest. "Do I seek to

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please men? for if I yet pleased men I "should not be the servant of Christ."

* Hutchison's Justice of Peace.

+ Ibid.

Galatians i. 10.

ON BASHFULNESS.

Part Fifth.

DRESS, and stile, and fashion, should be studied, however reluctantly, by the bashful.

To be seen in a drawing-room in an unfashionable coat, with linen not perfectly clean and white, and without silk stockings, costs so many blushes, as to make them resolve with Richard, "To be at charges for a looking-glass, and study fashions."

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Style is the dress of thoughts: good thoughts and a goodly person are lost in slovenliness. The style of a modest man is not careless nor ostentatious, it makes no demand on a reader's patience to find out the meaning, nor on his admiration of ambitious

I

ornament. There is a clearness and precision, as in the writings of Doctor Reid, which indicate respectful preparation before appearing in public.

The late Doctor Adam Smith, in his Lectures on Rhetoric, (which, to the regret of his hearers, were not published) remarked the influence of a man's temper on his style, and illustrated it in Shaftsbury, Swift, Addison, &c. A bashful author is inclined to write with simplicity, and should guard against the abrupt, the stiff, the blunt, the quaint, the contracted, the affected, the obscure. If figurative language occurs, let him try it in secret, as a modest maiden does her ornaments, and learn from Longinus not to put on too many, and let them be his own. The field of similitude has been so often and so diligently reaped, that few gleanings remain : the borrowing fine ones, like a superfine patched up borrowed suit, indicates poverty; a plain one of his own is better: nor is it safe to strain for far-fetched parallels, "as like as Vulcan to his wife."

The art of composing may be rated too high: Swift is recommended to young stu dents for his good style, but his matter is not always good; he conveys an early prejudice

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