disipate their own money, and waste that with which others have intrufted them, with all the langfrid of the beft-bred people of fashion; and we may meet with more than one man of spirit behind a counter, who can cock his hat in the face of his creditors, as valiantly as if there was a cockade or a feather in it.

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N° 82. SATURDAY, August 26, 1786.

Je n'arme contre lui que le fruit de fon crime.

CREBILLON.

THE effects of moral inftruction and pre

cept on the mind have been rated very highly by fome grave and worthy men, while by others the experience of their inefficacy, in regulating the conduct of the hearer or reader, has been cited as an indifputable proof of their unimportance. Among thofe, fay they, on whom Moral Eloquence has employed all her powers, who have been tutored by the wifeft and moft virtuous teachers, and have had the advice and direction of the ablest and most perfuafive guides, how few are there whose future conduct has answered to the instruction they received, or the maxims which were fo often repeated to them. Natural difpofition or acquired habits regulate the tenor of our lives; and neither the fermon that perfuades, nor the relation that moves, has any permanent effect on the actions of him who liftens or who weeps.

Yet, though examples of their efficacy are not very frequent, it does not altogether follow that VOL. III. G

the

the difcourfe or the story are useless and vain. Stronger motives will no doubt overpower weaker ones, and those which constantly affail will prevail over others which seldom occur. Paffion therefore will fometimes be obeyed when reafon is forgot, and corrupt fociety will at length overcome the best early impreffions. But the effects of that reafon, or of those impreffions, we are not always in condition to eftimate fairly. The examples of their failure are eafily known, and certain of being observed; the inftances of such as have been preserved from furrounding contagion by their influence, are traced with difficulty, and strike us lefs when they are traced.

Formal precepts and hypothetical cautions are indeed frequently offered to youth and inexperience, in a manner fo ungracious as neither to command their attention nor conciliate their liking. He who says I am to instruct and to warn, with a face of inftruction or admonition, prepares his audience for hearing what the young and the lively always avoid as tirefome, or fear as unpleasant. A more willing and a deeper impreffion will be made, when the obfervation arifes without being prompted, when the understanding is addressed through the feelings. It was this which ftruck me fo forcibly in the ftory of Father Nicholas. I

never felt fo strongly the evils of diffipation, nor ever was so ashamed of the shame of being virtuous.

It was at a small town in Brittany, in which there was a convent of Benedictines, where particular circumftances had induced me to take up my refidence for a few weeks. They had fome pictures which ftrangers ufed to vifit. I went with a party whose purpose was to look at them : mine in such places is rather to look at men. If in the world we behold the fhifting fcene which prompts obfervation, we see in fuch fecluded focieties a fort of still life, which nourishes thought, which gives fubject for meditation. I confefs however I have often been difappointed; I have seen a group of faces under their cowls, on which fpeculation could build nothing; mere common-place countenances, which might have equally well belonged to a corporation of bakers or butchers. Most of those in the convent I now visited were of that kind one however was of a very superior order; that of a monk who kneeled at a diftance from the altar, near a Gothic window, through the painted panes of which a gleamy light touched his forehead, and threw a dark Rembrandt fhade on the hollow of a large, black, melancholy eye. It was impossible not to take notice of him. He looked up, invo

give to another in the pit fome weeks ago, who obferved to him, that the farce was droll and laughable enough, but that there was a good deal of double entendre in it. I don't know what you may think double, faid he in reply; but in my mind, it was as plain fingle entendre as ever I heard in my life.

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