CHAP. XIII.

There are many cases wherein a man may be minded of a benefit, but it is very rarely to be challenged, and never to be upbraided.

Divers sorts of ingratitude.

Ir the world were wise, and as honest as it should be, there would be no need of caution or precept how to behave ourselves in our several stations and duties; for both the giver and the receiver would do what they ought to do of their own accord: the one would be bountiful, and the other grateful, and the only way of minding a man of one good turn would be the following of it with another. But as the case stands, we must take other measures, and consult the best we can, the common ease and relief of mankind. As there are several sorts of ungrateful men, so there must be several ways of dealing with them, either by artifice, counsel, admonition, or reproof, according to the humor of the person, and the degree of the offense provided always, that as well in the reminding a man of a benefit, as in the bestowing of it, the good of the receiver be the principal thing intended. There is a curable ingratitude, and an incurable; there is a slothful, a neglectful, a proud, a dissembling, a disclaiming, a heedless, a forgetful, and a malicious ingratitude; and the application must be suited to the matter we have to work upon. A gentle nature may be reclaimed by authority, advice, or reprehension; a father, a husband, a friend, may do good in the case. There are a sort of lazy and sluggish people, that live as if they were asleep, and must be lugged and pinched to wake them. These men are between grateful and ungrateful; they will neither deny an obligation nor return it, and only want quickening. I will do all I can to hinder any man from ill-doing, but especially a friend; and yet more especially from doing ill to me. I will rub up his memory with new benefits: if that will not serve, I will proceed to good counsel, and from thence to rebuke: if all fails, I will look upon him

as a desperate debtor, and even let him alone in his ingratitude, without making him my enemy: for no necessity shall ever make me spend time in wrangling with any man upon that point.

Assiduity of obligation strikes upon the conscience, as well as the memory, and pursues an ungrateful man till

No man

Perseverance in

obliging.

he becomes grateful: if one good office will not do it, try a second, and then a third. can be so thankless, but either shame, occasion, or example, will, at some time or other, prevail upon him. The very beasts themselves, even lions and tigers, are gained by good usage: beside, that one obligation does naturally draw on another; and a man would not willingly leave his own work imperfect. "I have helped him thus far, and I will even go through with it now." So that, over and above the delight and the virtue of obliging, one good turn is a shouting-horn to another. This, of all hints, is perhaps the most effectual, as well as the most generous.

In some cases a man may be minded of a benefit.

In some cases it must be carried more home: as in that of Julius Cæsar, who, as he was hearing a cause, the defendant finding himself pinched; "Sir," says he, "do not you remember a strain you got in your ancle when you commanded in Spain; and that a soldier lent you his cloak for a cushion, upon the top of a craggy rock, under the shade of a little tree, in the heat of the day?" "I remember it perfectly well," says Caesar, "and that when I was ready to choke with thirst, an honest fellow fetched me a draught of water in his helmet." "But that man, and that helmet," says the soldier, "does Cæsar think that he could not know them again, if he saw them?" "The man perchance, I might," says Cæsar, somewhat offended, "but not the helmet. But what is the story to my business? you are none of that man." "Pardon me, Sir," says the soldier, "I am that very man; but Cæsar may well forget me: for I have been trepanned since, and lost an eye at the battle of Munda, where that helmet too had the honor to be cleft with a Spanish blade." Cæsar took it as it was intended; and it was an honorable

;

and a prudent way of refreshing his memory. But this would not have gone down so well with Tiberius: for when an old acquaintance of his began his address to him with, "You remember, Cæsar." "No," says Cæsar (cutting him short), "I do not remember what I WAS." Now, with him, it was better to be forgotten than remembered; for an old friend was as bad as an informer. It is a common thing for men to hate the authors of their preferment, as the witnesses of their mean original.

Some people would be grateful if they had a prompter.

There are some people well enough disposed to be grateful, but they cannot hit upon it without a prompter; they are a little like school-boys that have treacherous memories; it is but helping them here and there with a word, when they hesitate, and they will go through with their lesson; they must be taught to be thankful, and it is a fair step, if we can but bring them to be willing, and only offer at it. Some benefits we have neglected; some we are not willing to remember. He is ungrateful that disowns an obligation, and so is he that dissembles it, or to his power does not requite it; but the worst of all is he that forgets it. Conscience, or occasion, may revive the rest; but here the very memory of it is lost. Those eyes that cannot endure the light are weak, but those are stark blind that cannot see it. I do not love to hear people say, "Alas! poor man, he has forgotten it; as if that were the excuse of ingratitude, which is the very cause of it: for if he were not ungrateful, he would not be forgetful, and lay that out of the way which should be always uppermost and in sight. He that thinks as he ought to do, of requiting a benefit, is in no danger of forgetting it. There are, indeed, some benefits so great, that they can never slip the memory; but those which are less in value, and more in number, do commonly escape us. We are apt enough to acknowledge, that "such a man has been the making of us;" so long as we are in possession of the advantage he has brought us; but new appetites deface old kindnesses, and we carry our prospect forward to something more, without considering what we have obtained already. All that is past we

give for lost; so that we are only intent upon the future. When a benefit is once out of sight, or out of use, it is buried.

There must be no upbraidings of benefits.

For these

It is the freak of many people, they cannot do a good office but they are presently boasting of it, drunk or sober; and about it goes into all companies, what wonderful things they have done for this man, and what for the other. A foolish and a dangerous vanity, of a doubtful friend to make a certain enemy. reproaches and contempts will set every body's tongue a talking; and people will conclnde, that these things would never be, if there were not something very extraordinary in the bottom of it. When it comes to that once, there is not any calumny but fastens more or less, nor any falsehood so incredible, but in some part or other of it, shall pass for a truth. Our great mistake is this, we are still inclined to make the most of what we give, and the least of what we receive; whereas we should do the clean contrary. "It might have been more, but he had a great many to oblige. It was as much as he could well spare; he will make it up some other time," &c. Nay, we should be so far from making publication of our bounties, as not to hear them so much as mentioned without sweetening the matter: as, "Alas, I owe him a great deal more than that comes to. If it were in my power to serve him, I should be very glad of it." And this, too, not with the figure of a compliment, but with all humanity and truth. There was a man of quality, that in the triumviral proscription, was saved by one of Cæsar's friends, who would be still twitting him with it; who it was that preserved him, and telling him over and over, "you had gone to pot, friend, but for me." "Pr'ythee," says the proscribed, "let me hear no more of this, or even leave me as you found me: I am thankful enough of myself to acknowledge that I owe you my life, but it is death to have it rung in my ears perpetually as a reproach; it looks as if you had only saved me to carry me about for a spectacle. I would fain forget the misfortune that I was once a prisoner, without being led in triumph every day of my life."

Some bounties are bestowed with insolence.

Oh! the pride and folly of a great fortune, that turns benefits into injuries! that delights in excesses, and disgrace every thing it does! Who would receive any thing from it upon these terms? the higher it raises us, the more sordid it makes us. Whatsoever it gives it corrupts. What is there in it that should thus puff us up? by what magic is it that we are so transformed, that we do no longer know ourselves? Is it impossible for greatness to be liberal without insolence? The benefits that we receive from our superiors are then welcome when they come with an open hand, and a clear brow; without either contumely or state; and so as to prevent our necessities. The benefit is never the greater for the making a bustle and a noise about it; but the benefactor is much the less for the ostentation of his good deeds; which makes that odious to us, which would be otherwise delightful. Tiberius had gotten a trick, when any man begged money of him, to refer him to the senate, where all the petitioners were to deliver up the names of their creditors. His end perhaps was, to deter men from asking, by exposing the condition of their fortunes to an examination. But it was, however, a benefit turned into a reprehension, and he made a reproach of a bounty.

In what case a man may be reminded of a benefit.

But it is not enough yet to forbear the casting of a benefit in a man's teeth; for there are some that will not allow it to be so much as challenged. For an ill man, say they, will not make a return, though it be demanded, and a good man will do it of himself: and then the asking of it seems to turn it into a debt. It is a kind of injury to be too quick with the former: for to call upon him too soon reproaches him, as if he would not have done it otherwise. Nor would I recall a benefit from any man so as to force it, but only to receive it. If I let him quite alone, I make myself guilty of his ingratitude and undo him for want of plain dealing. A father reclaims a disobedient son, a wife reclaims a dissolute husband; and one friend excites the languishing kindness of another. How many