from our continental neighbours, at a price which leaves us moft notorious lofers, and turns the balance most cruelly in our disfavour.-Our veftries, our clubs, and our affociations, have lately brought us fuch an overflow of this commodity, that the operations of productive industry are in danger of being embarraffed thereby: for I have remarked that the quantity of activity is generally in a reverfe proportion to the quantity of counfel; and that where very many fuppofe in themselves an ability to advife, but very few feel the obligation to perform.

It is one of our family-maxims, derived to us through many generations, never to take advice from the unfortunate, or from those who have bought experience at the expence of their honour, their reputation, or their happiness; from a fufpicion that a levelling with might lurk at the bottom, and from a perfuafion that no man is pleafed with raising a contrast to deepen the fhades of his own inferiority. Thofe who build their pretenfions to advise, fimply upon their experience, may not improperly be denominated a fpecies of quacks in morality; while thofe only can be

confidered

confidered as regularly bred to the art of adminiftering counsel, whose minds have been matured by contemplation and study, whofe knowledge has been digefted through a long courfe of tranquil reflexion, and whofe obfervation has run paralle with their experience through the whole tenour of their lives.

An Utopian speculatift might amufe himself with planning a department in every diftrict, or parish, which fhould be called the office of advice; from which might iffue certificates and teftimonials, constituting fuch only difpenfers of counfel, who could prove themfelves qualified by producing a countenance of health and cheerfulness, a character unimpeached, and the means of a comfortable fubfiftence: for though, in fome cafes, fufficient ability might be found where thefe documents were wanting, yet, for a folitary exception or fo, one would not destroy a rule which would preclude fo much impertinence, and help fo materially to debarrafs the motions of business and activity. There is fomething too in the affirmative teftimony with which thofe can urge their advice, who carry in their own perfons the fubftantial

proofs of its good confequences, that is greatly more animating and decifive, than those negative arguments which an experience in vice will afford us in the defence of virtue. If we change the application of this remark, we fhall find it equally true in what refpects the interefts of immorality: thus, one affirmative proof of the fuccefs of gaming, will easily overbalance the teftimony of a hundred martyrs to its ruinous infatuation.

It is pleafing thus to contemplate virtue in this light of worldly importance; to view her intrenching herfelf in human policy and wisdom, and afferting her claim to temporal advantages; to behold her high prerogatives over vice, her fuperiority of controul, and the more impofing weight of her authority; and to regard that flow and certain operation, with which thefe advantages have endowed her, towards extending her dominion on earth, and propagating her culture among mankind.

It was a faying of St. Auguftine, that if the conduct of a man be at variance with the falutary advice he exhibits, we should regard him as a directing-poft, which is not the lefs to be attended

to,

to, because it has never gone the way to which it directs us. The allufion is neat, but the reasoning is fallacious; fince the circumftances of man are fo different from thofe of a directing-poft, and fince it is on the neglect of a capacity, which the directing-poft is without, that we found our fuf picion of the motives which govern advice. In regard to the delicacy and difficulty attending the task of administering advice, there is a paffage in the Nigrinus of LUCIAN, which affords fome very fenfible hints. After a long difcourfe held by that Philofopher, in which a great variety of useful precepts are contained, he thus fpeaks of the impreffion that was made upon him:

"He concluded with a number of excellent "remarks of the fame nature: I was divided "between aftonishment at what I had heard, and "apprehenfion left he should add nothing more. "For a long time my eyes were fixed on him, "my head turned round; and fo oppreffed was "I, with my veneration for him, that I almoft "funk under a fenfe of my own inferiority. My tongue faltered, my voice forfook me; till at length my bofom discharged itself in a flood of

་

"tears. It was not a flight touch his difcourfe "had given me, that merely rafed the skin; but "it was a deep and thorough wound, that pierced "to my very foul. A well-conftituted mind may "be compared to a foft mark or butt, on which "numberless archers exert their skill, with their "quivers full of pointed speeches; but to take a judicious aim is an excellence to which but "few attain. Some, by ftretching the cord too "tight, fend the arrow with more force than is "neceffary; fo that, instead of fixing itself in the "butt, it paffes through, and leaves a gaping "wound behind; while others, for want of fuffi"cient strength, fall fhort of the mark, and are unable to fend their arrows above half

way; or, "if they complete their course, they give but a "feeble touch, and then fall ineffectual to the

ground. But the dexterous bowman begins "with examining the quality of the material

against which he is to fhoot, that he may "exert a force proportionate to its hardness or "foftnefs; and then dipping his arrow, not in

poifon like the Scythians, or in opium like the "Curetes, but in a liquor properly prepared for the purpose, takes a deliberate and accurate