tion; we may be less profligate than they are, by being more cowardly: but what I advance as certain is, That we cannot be safe among them-that they will, in some degree, and may in a very great one, hurt our morals. You may not, perhaps, be unwilling to have a distinct view of the reasons, upon which I assert this. I will enter upon them in my next. I was going to write adieu, when it came into my thoughts, that though you may not be a stranger to the much censured doctrine of our countryman Pelagius -a stranger to his having denied original sin; you may, perhaps, have never heard how he accounted for the depravity, so manifest in the whole of our race--He asscribed it to imitation. Had he said, that imitation makes some of us very bad, and most of us worse than we otherwise should have been; I think he would not have passed for an heretic. Dean Bolton. SIR, $121. LETTER II. I promised you, that you should have the reasons, why I think that there is great danger of your being hurt by vicious acquaintance. The first thing I have here to propose to your consideration is, what I just mentioned at the close of my lastour aptness to imitate. For many years of our life we are forming ourselves upon what we observe in those about us. We do not only learn their phrase, but their manners. You perceive among whom we were educated, not more plainly by our idiom, than by our behaviour. The cottage offers you a brood, with all the rusticity and savageness of its grown inhabitants. The civility and courtesy, which, in a well-ordered family, are constantly seen by its younger members, fail not to influence their deportment; and will, whatever their natural brutality may be, dispose them to check its appearance, and express an averseness from what is rude and disgusting. Let the descendant of the meanest be placed from his infancy, where he perceives every one mindful of decorum; the marks of his extraction are soon obliterated; at least, his carriage does not discover it: and were the heir of his Grace to be continually in the kitchen or stables, you would soon only know the young lord by his clothes and title: in other respects, you would judge him the son of the groom. Nor is the disposition to imitate confined to our childhood; when this is past, and the man is to shew himself, he takes his colours, if I may so speak, from those he is near-he copies their appearance-he seldom is, what the use of his reason, or what his own inclinations, would make him. Are the opinions of the generality, in most points, any other, than what they hear advanced by this or that person high in their esteem, and whose judgment they will not allow themselves to question? You well know, that one could not lately go into company, but the first thing said was -You have, undoubtedly, read-What an excellent performance it is! The fine imagination of its noble author discovers itself in every line. As soon as this noble author seriously disowned it, all the admiration of it was at an end. Its merit, with those who had most commended it, appeared to be wholly the name of its supposed writer. Thus we find it throughout. It is not what is written, or said, or acted, that we examine; and approve or condemn, as it is, in itself, good or bad: Our concern is, who writes, who says, or does it; and we, accordingly, regard, or disregard it. Look round the kingdom. There is, perhaps, scarce a village in it, where the seriousness or dissoluteness of the Squire, if not quite a driveller, is not more or less seen in the manners of the rest of its inhabitants. And he, who is thus a pattern, takes his pattern-fashions himself by some or other of a better estate, or higher rank, with whose character he is pleased, or to whom he seeks to recommend himself. In what a short space is a whole nation metamorphosed! Fancy yourself in the middle of the last century. What grave faces do you every where behold! The most dissolutely inclined suffers not a libertine expression to escape him. He who least regards the practice of virtue, assumes its appearance. None claim, from their stations, a privilege for their vices. The greatest strangers to the influence of religion observe its form. The soldier not only forbears an oath, but reproves it; he may possibly make free with your goods, as having more grace than you, and therefore, a better title to them; but you have nothing to fear from his lewdness, or drunk enness. The Royal Brothers at length land— The The monarchy is restored. How soon then is a grave aspect denominated a puritanical; decorum, preciseness; seriousness, fanaticism! He, who cannot extinguish in himself all sense of religion, is industrious to conceal his having anyappears worse than he is-would be thought to favour the crime, that he dares not commit. The lewdest conversation is the politest. No representation pleases, in which decency is consulted. Every favourite drama has its hero a libertine-introduces the magistrate, only to expose him as a knave, or a cuckold, and the priest, only to describe him a profligate or hypocrite. How much greater the power of fashion is, than that of any laws, by whatsoever penalties enforced, the experience of all ages and nations concurs in teaching us. We readily imitate, where we cannot be constrained to obey and become by example, what our rule seeks in vain to make us. So far we may be all truly styled players, as we all personate-borrow our characters-represent some other-act a partexhibit those who have been most under our notice, or whom we seek to please, or with whom we are pleased. As the Cameleon, who is known But borrows from his neighbour's hue SIR, PRIOR. Dean Bolton. § 122. LETTER III. My last endeavoured to shew you, how apt we are to imitate. Let me now desire you to consider the disposition you will be under to recommend yourself to those, whose company you desire, or would not decline. Conversation, like marriage, must have consent of parties. There is no being intimate with him, who will not be so with you; and, in order to contract or support an intimacy, you must give the pleasure, which you would receive. This is a truth, that every man's experience must force him to acknowledge; we are sure to seek in vain a familiarity with any, who have no interest to serve by us, if we disregard their humour. In courts indeed, where the art of pleasing is more studied than it is elsewhere, you see people more dexterously accommodating themselves to the turn of those, for whose favour they wish; but, whereever you go, you almost constantly perceive the same end pursued by the same means, though there may not be the same adroitness in applying them. What a proof have you in your own neighbourhood, how effectual these means are! Did you ever hear Charles-tell a good story-make a shrewd observation-drop an expression, which bordered either on wit or humour? Yet he is welcome to all tables-he is much with those, who have wit, who have humour, who are, really, men of abilities. Whence is this, but from the approbation he shews of whatever passes? A story he cannot tell, but he has a laugh in readiness for every one he hears: by his admiration of wit, he supplies the want of it; and they who have capacity, find no objection to the meanness of his, whilst he appears always to think as they do. Few have their looks and tempers so much at command as this man; and few, therefore, are so happy in recommending themselves; but as in his way of doing it, there is, obviously, the greatest likelihood of success, we may be sure that it will be the way generally taken. Some, I grant, you meet with, who by their endeavours, on all occasions, to shew a superior discernment, may seem to think, that to gain the favour of any one, he must be brought to their sentiments, rather than they adopt his; but I fear these persons will be found only giving too clear a proof, either how absurdly self-conceit sometimes operates, or how much knowledge there may be, where there is very little common sense. Did I, in describing the creature called MAN, represent him as having, in proportion to his bulk, more brains than any other animal we know of; I should not think this description false, though it could be proved that some of the species had scarce any brains at all. Even where favour is not particularly sought, the very civility, in which he, who would be regarded as a well-bred man, is -never wanting, must render him unwilling to avow the most just disapprobation of what his companions agree in acting, or commending. He is by no means to give disgust, and, therefore, when he hears the worst principles vindicated, and the best ridiculed; or when he sees what ought to be matter of the greatest shame, done without any; he is to acquiesce, he is to shew no token, that what passes is at all offensive to him. Consider yourself then in either of these situations-desirous to engage the favour of the bad man, into whose company you are admitted-or, only unwilling to be thought by him deficient in good manners; and, I think, you will plainly see the danger you should apprehend from him-the likelihood there is, that you should at length lose the abhorrence of his crimes, which, when with him, you never express. Will you ask me, why it is not as probable-that you should reform your vicious acquaintance, as that they should corrupt you? Or, why may I not as well suppose that they will avoid speaking and acting what will give you offence, as that you will be averse from giving them any-that they will consult your inclinations, as that you will theirs? To avoid the length, which will be equally disagreeable to both of us, I will only answer-- Do you know any instance, which can induce you to think this pro bable? Are not you apprised of many instances, that greatly weaken the probability of it? The vast disproportion, which there is between the numbers of the serious and the dissolute, is so notorious, as to render it unquestionable that the influence of the latter far exceeds the influence of the former-that a vicious man is much more likely to corrupt a virtuous, than to be reformed by him. An answer of the same kind I should have judged satisfactory; if with respect to what I had urged in my former letter, you questioned me-why the readiness to imitate those, with whom we are much conversant, might not as justly encourage you to hope, when you associated with the less sober, that they might be won to your regularity, as occasion you to fear, that you should be brought to join in their excesses ? The good have been for so long a space losing ground among us, and the bad gaining it; and these are now become such a prodigious multitude; that it is undeniable, how much more apt we are to form ourselves on the manners of those, who disregard their duty, than on theirs, who are attentive to it. You will here be pleased to remark, that I do not consider you as setting out with any reforming views-as conversing with the immoral, in order to dispose them to reasonable pursuits; but that I only apply to you, as induced to associate with them from the easiness of their temper, or the pleasantry of their humour, or your common literary pursuits, or their skill in some of your favourite amusements, or on some such-like account: and then, what I have observed may not appear a weak argument, that they are much more likely to hurt you, than you are to benefit them. I will close my argument and my letter, with a passage from a very good historian, which will shew you the sense of one of the ablest of the ancient legislators on my present subject. This writer, mentioning the laws which Charondas gave the Thurians, says-" He "enacted a law with reference to an evil, "on which former lawgivers had not ani"madverted, that of keeping bad com pany. As he conceived that the morals "of the good were sometimes quite ruined "by their dissolute acquaintance-that vice was apt, like an infectious disease, "to spread itself, and to extend its conta"gion even to the best disposed of our " species. In order to prevent this mis"chief, he expressly enjoined, that none "should engage in any intimacy or fami"liarity with immoral persons-he ap"pointed that an accusation might be ex"hibited for keeping bad company, and laid "a heavy fine on such as were convicted "of it." Remember Charondas, when you are disposed to censure the caution suggested by Dear Sir, Yours, &c. Dean Bolton. Mr Anthony Bacon, then a very young man, and on his travels, expresses himself thus "The danger is great that we are "subject to, in lying in the company of "the worser sort. In natural bodies, evil "airs are avoided, and infection shunned "of them, that have any regard to their "health. There is not so probable a rea"son for the corruptions, that may grow "to the mind of one from the mind of "another; but the danger is far greater, "and the effects we see more frequent "for the number of evil-disposed in mind "is greater than the number of sick in "body......Though the well-disposed "will remain some good space without "corruption, yet time, I know not how, "worketh a wound into him......Which "weakness of ours considered, and easi"ness of nature, apt to be deceived, "looked into; they do best provide for "themselves, that separate themselves, as "far as they can, from the bad, and draw "as nigh to the good, as by any possibi"lity they can attain to." To what I have already said, in proof, that we should thus separate ourselves, I shall now add two further reasons for our doing it: 1. The wrong inclinations, the proneness to violate some or other part of our duty, which we all find in ourselves. 2. The power which custom hath, to reconcile us to what we, at first, most dreaded. Need I tell you, that our natural depravity has not only been the theme of Christian writers; but that the most eminent heathen authors, poets, historians, philosophers, join in confessing it? Where, alas! is the man, who has not His wrong tendencies to lament? Whom do you know able to conceal them, to prevent a clear discovery of them in his practice? According as we are liable to act amiss, we, certainly, must be in more or less danger from associating with those, who either will seek to draw us into guilt or will countenance us in it-or will diminish our abhorrence of it. Some danger from such company there must be even to him, whose inclinations are least faulty; since they may be made worse-they may produce bad actions, the repetition of which would form bad habits; and nothing could be so likely to heighten any depravity of disposition, and carry it to the most fatal lengths of misconduct, as a familiarity with those, who have no dread of guilt, or none that restrains them from complying with the temptations they meet with to guilt. You may, perhaps, think, that you could be in no danger from any companion, to whose excesses you found not in yourself the least propensity: but believe me, my friend, this would by no means warrant your safety. Though such a companion might not induce you to offend in the very same way, that he doth: he would, probably, make you the offender, that you otherwise never would have been. If he did not bring you to conform to his practice, would he not be likely to insinuate his principles? His disregard to his duty would tend to render you indifferent to yours: and, while he lessened your general regard to virtue, he might make you a very bad man, though you should continue wholly to avoid his particular crimes. The unconcernedness, with which he gave his worst inclinations their scope, could hardly be day after day observed, without making you less solicitous to restrain your own wrong tendencies, and strongly urging you to a compliance with them. 2. The danger there is in conversing with the immoral will be yet more apparent; if you will, next, attend to the power of custom in reconciling us to that which we at first most dreaded. Whence is it, that veteran troops face an enemy, with almost as little concern as they perform their exercise? The man of the greatest courage among them felt, probably, in the first battle wherein he was, a terror that required all his courage to surmount. Nor was this terror, afterwards, overcome by him, but by degrees; every succeeding engagement abated it: the oftener he fought, the less he feared; by being habituated to danger, he learned, at length, to despise it. An ordinary swell of the ocean alarmıs the youth who has never before been upon it; but he whose fears are now raised, when there is nothing that ought to excite them, becomes soon without any, even when in a situation, that might justly dismay him; he is calm, when the storm is most violent; and discovers no uneasy apprehensions, while the vessel, in which he sails, is barely not sinking. You cannot, I am persuaded, visit an hospital-survey the variety of distress there-hear the complaints of the sick see see the sores of the wounded, without being yourself in pain, and a sharer of their sufferings. The constant attendants on these poor wretches have no such concern: with dispositions not less humane than yours, they do not feel the emotions that you would be under, at this scene of misery; their frequent view of it has reconciled them to it has been the cause, that their minds are no otherwise affected by it, than yours is by the objects ordinarily before you. From how many other instances might it be shewn, that the things, which, at their first appearance, strike us with the greatest terror, no sooner become familiar, than they cease to discompose us? Let, therefore, our education have been the carefullest and wisest; let there have been used therein all the means likeliest to fix in us an abhorrence of vice; we, yet, cannot be frequently among those, who allow themselves in it, and have as few scruples about the concealment of any crime they are disposed to, as about its commission, without beholding it with abundantly less uneasi ness than its first view occasioned us. When it is so beheld; when what is very wrong no more shocks us-is no longer highly offensive to us; the natural and necessary progress is to a still farther abatement of our aversion from it: and what is of force enough to conquer a strong dislike, may be reasonably concluded well able to effect some degree of approbation. How far this shall proceed, will, indeed, depend, in a good measure, upon our temper, upon our constitutional tendencies, upon our circumstances but surely we are become bad enough, when it is not the consideration of what is amiss in any practice, that withholds us from it-when we only avoid it, because it is not agreeable to our humour; or, because the law punishes it; or because it interferes with some other criminal gratification, which better pleases us. I began this with an extract from a letter of Walsingham: I will end it with one from a letter of Grotius, when ambassador in France, to his brother, concerning his son, whom he had recommended to that gentleman's care. After having expressed his wishes, that the young man might be formed a complete advocate, he concludes thus-" Above all "things, I intreat you to cultivate those "seeds of knowledge, sown by me in him, "which are productive of piety; and to "recommend to him, for companions, 7 "such persons as are themselves careful "to make a proficiency therein." GROT. Ep. 426. SIR, Dean Bolton. $124. LETTER V. When I ended my last, I continued in my chair, thinking of the objections which might be made to what I had written to you. The following then occurred to me. That, when we are in possession of truth, from fair examination and full evidence, there can be very little danger of our being induced to quit it, either by repeatedly hearing the weak objections of any to it, or by remarking them to act as wrongly as they argue-That, as in mathematics, the proposition which we had once demonstrated, would always have our assent, whomsoever we heard cavilling at it, or ridiculing our judgment concerning it: so in morals, when once a due consideration of the essential and unchangeable differences of things hath rendered us certain of what is right and our duty: we can never be made less certain thereof, whatever errors, in judgment or practice, we may daily observe in our associates, or daily hear them absurd enough to defend-That when we not only plainly perceive the practice of virtue to be most becoming us to be what the nature and reason of things require of us: but actually feel, likewise, the satisfaction which it affords, the solid pleasure which is its inseparable attendant; there can be no more ground to suppose, that our having continually before us the follies and vices of any, would lead us to depart from what we know to be fittest, and have experienced to be best for us, than there can be to believe, that a man in his wits would leave the food, which his judgment approved and his palate relished, for another sort, which he saw, indeed, pleasing to his companions, but which he was certain would poison them. How little weight there is in this kind of arguing, I think every one might be convinced, who would attend to his own practice, who would consider the numerous instances in which he cannot but condemn it-in which he cannot but acknowledge it contrary to what his present welfare requires it should be. Let us think the most justly of our duty, and shun, with the greatest care, all who would countenance us in a departure from it; we still shall find that departure too fre quent |