He is grateful that is always ready.

benefit has his eye upon another.

He that is

grateful for profit or fear, is like a woman that is honest only upon the score of reputation.

As gratitude is a necessary and a glorious, so it is also an obvious, a cheap, and an easy virtue, So obvious, that wheresoever there is a life there is a place for it; so cheap, that the covetous man may be grateful without expence; and so easy, that the sluggard may be so likewise without labour. And yet, it is not without its niceties too, for there may be a time, a place, or occasion, wherein I ought not to return a benefit; nay, wherein I may better disown it, than deliver it.

Let it be understood, by the way, that it is one thing to be grateful for a good office, and another thing to return it; the good will is enough in one case, being as much as the one side demands, and the other promises; but the effect is requisite in the other. The physician that has done his best is acquitted, though the patient dies; and so is the advocate, though the client may lose his cause. The general of an army, though the battle be lost, is yet worthy of commendation, if he has discharged all the parts of a prudent commander; in this case, the one acquits himself, though the other be never the better for it. He is a grateful man that is always willing and ready, and he that seeks for all means and occasions of requiting a benefit, though without at

The grateful remember what is past.

taining his end, does a great deal more than the man that without any trouble makes an immediate return. Suppose my friend a prisoner, and that I have sold my, estate for his ransom, I put to sea in foul weather, and upon a coast that is pestered with pirates, my friend happens to be redeemed before I come to the place, my gratitude is as much to be esteemed, as if he had been a prisoner; and if I had been taken and robbed myself, it would still have been the same case. Nay, there is a gratitude in the very countenance; for an honest man bears his conscience in his face, and propounds the requital of a good turn in the very moment of receiving it; he is cheerful and confident, and in the possession of a true friendship, delivered from all anxiety. There is this difference betwixt a thankful man and an unthankful; the one is always pleased in the good he has done, and the other only once, in what he has received. There must be a benignity in the estimation, even in the smallest offices; and such a modesty as appears to be obliged in whatsoever it gives. As it is indeed a very great benefit, the opportunity of doing a good office to a worthy man. He that attends to the present, and remembers what is past, shall never be ungrateful. But, who shall judge in the case? For a man inay be grateful without making a return, and ungrateful with it. Our best way is to help every

A man may be over-grateful.

thing by a fair interpretation, and wheresoever there is a doubt, to allow it the most favourable construction, for he that is exceptious at words, or looks, has a mind to pick a quarrel. For my own part, when I come to cast up my accompt, and know what I owe, and to whom, though I make my return sooner to some, and later to others, as occasion or fortune will give me leave, yet I will be just to all. I will be grateful to God, to man, to those that have obliged me, nay, even to those that have obliged my friends. I am bound in honour, and in conscience, to be thankful for what I have received; and if it be not yet full, it is some pleasure still, that I may hope for For the requital of a favour, there must

more

be virtue, occasion, means, and fortune.

It is a common thing to screw up justice to the pitch of an injury. A man may be over-righteous; and, why not over-grateful too? There is a mischievous excess, that borders so close upon ingratitude, that it is no easy matter to distinguish the one from the other, but, in regard that there is good-will in the bottom of it (however distempered, for it is effectually but kindness out of the wits), we shall discourse it under the title of Gratitude Mistaken.

GRATITUDE MISTAKEN.

To refuse a good office, not so much because we do not need it, as because we would not be

Romantic ideas of kindness.

indebted for it, is a kind of phantastical ingratitude, and somewhat akin to that nicety of humour on the other side, of being ungrateful; only it lies another way, and seems to be the more pardonable ingratitude of the two. Some people take it for a great instance of their good will, to be still wishing their benefactors such or such a mischief, only, forsooth, that they themselves might be the happy instruments of their release. These men do, like extravagant lovers, that take it for a great proof of their affection, to wish one another banished, beggared, or diseased, that they might have the opportunity of interposing to their relief. What difference is there betwixt such wishing and cursing? Such an affection, and a mortal hatred? The intent is good, you will say, but this is a misapplication of it. Let such a one fall into my power, or into the hands of his enemies, his creditors, or the common people, and no mortal be able to rescue him but myself. Let his life, his liberty, and his reputation, lie all at stake, and no creature but myself, in condition to succour him; and why all this, but because he has obliged me, and I would requite him? If this be gratitude, to propound jails, shackles, slavery, war, beggary, to the man that you would requite, what would you do where you are ungrateful! This way of proreeding, over and above that it is impious in it

lf, is likewise over-hasty and unseasonable; for

We must not commit evil to produce good.

he that goes too fast, is as much to blame as he that does not move at all (to say nothing of the injustice), for if I had never been obliged, I should never have wished it. There are seasons wherein a benefit is neither to be received nor requited. To press a return upon me, when I do not desire it, is unmannerly; but it is worse to force me to desire it. How rigorous would he be to exact a requital, who is thus eager to return it? To wish a man in distress, that I may relieve him, is, first, to wish him miserable: to wish that he may stand in need of any body, is against him, and to wish that he may stand in need of me, is for myself: so that my business is not so much a charity to my friend, as the cancelling of a bond, nay, it is half way the wish of an enemy. It is barbarous to wish a man in chains, slavery, or want, only to bring him out again; let me rather wish him powerful, and happy, and myself indebted to him. By nature we are prone to mercy, humanity, and compassion, may we be excited to be more so by the number of the grateful, may their number increase, and may we have no need of trying them.

to a

It is not for an honest man to make way good office by a crime: as if a pilot should pray for a tempest, that he might prove his skill; or a general wish his army routed, that he might shew himself a great commander in recovering the day.