quality, and doing as much as his circumstances will bear for the ease and convenience of other men; and he who does more than ordinary men practise upon such occasions as occur in his life, deserves the value of his friends, as if he had done enterprises which are usually attended with the highest glory. Men of public spirit differ rather in their circumstances than their virtue; and the man who does all he can, in a low station, is more a hero than he who omits any worthy action he is able to accomplish in a great one. It is not many years ago since Lapirius, in wrong of his elder brother, came to a great estate by gift of his father, by reason of the dissolute behaviour of the first-born. Shame and contrition reformed the life of the disinherited youth, and he became as remarkable for his good qualities as formerly for his errors. Lapirius, who observed his brother's amendment, sent him on a new-year's day in the morning the following letter:

I INCLOSE to you the deeds whereby my father gave me this house and land. Had he lived till now, he would not have bestowed it in that manner; he took it from the man you were, and I restore it to the man you are.

I am, SIR,

Your affectionate brother,

and humble servant,

'P.T."

As great and exalted spirits undertake the pursuit of hazardous actions for the good of others, at the same time gratifying their passion for glory; so do

worthy minds in the domestic way of life deny themselves many advantages, to satisfy a generous benevolence, which they bear to their friends oppressed with distresses and calamities. Such natures one may call stores of Providence, which are actuated by a secret celestial influence to undervalue the ordinary gratifications of wealth, to give comfort to an heart loaded with affliction, to save a falling family, to preserve a branch of trade in their neighbourhood, and give work to the industrious, preserve the portion of the helpless infant, and raise the head of the mourning father. People whose hearts are wholly bent towards pleasure, or intent upon gain, never hear of the noble occurrences among men of industry and humanity. It would look like a city romance, to tell them of the generous merchant, who the other day sent this billet to an eminent trader under difficulties to support himself, in whose fall many hundreds besides himself had perished: but because I think there is more spirit and true gallantry in it than in any letter I have ever read from Strephon to Phillis, I shall insert it even in the mercantile honest stile in which it was sent :

SIR,

I HAVE heard of the casualties which have involved you in extreme distress at this time; and knowing you to be a man of great good-nature, industry, and probity, have resolved to stand by you. Be of good cheer; the bearer brings with him five thousand pounds, and has my order to answer your drawing as much more on my account. I did this in haste, for fear I should come too late for your relief; but you may value yourself with me to the sum of fifty thou

sand pounds; for I can very cheerfully run the hazard of being so much less rich than I am now, to save an honest man whom I love.

• Your friend and servant,

'W.S."

I think there is somewhere in Montaigne2 mention made of a family-book, wherein all the occurrences that happened from one generation of that house to another were recorded. Were there such a method in the families which are concerned in this generosity, it would be an hard task for the greatest in Europe to give in their own, an instance of a benefit better placed, or conferred with a more graceful air. It has been heretofore urged, how barbarous and inhuman is any unjust step made to the disadvantage of a trader3; and by how much such an act towards him is detestable, by so much an act of kindness towards him is laudable. I remember to have heard a bencher of the Temple tell a story of a tradition in their house, where they had formerly a custom of choosing kings for such a season, and allowing him his expences at the charge of the society. One of our kings, said my friend, carried his royal inclination a little too far, and there was a committee ordered to look into the management of his treasury. Among

The merchant involved in distress by casualties was one Mr. Moreton, a linen-draper; and the generous merchant, here so justly celebrated, was Sir William Scawen.

2 Montaigne's Essays, vol. i. 8vo. edit.

3 See N° 218.

4 Beau Nash, master of the ceremonies (with the title of King) at Bath. See his life in the Biographical Dictionary, vol. xi. edit. 1798.

other things it appeared, that his majesty walking incog. in the cloister, had overheard a poor man say to another, Such a small sum would make me the happiest man in the world.' The king, out of his royal compassion, privately inquired into his character, and, finding him a proper object of charity, sent him the money. When the committee read the report, the house passed his accounts with a plaudite without farther examination, upon the recital of this article in them:

For making a man happy £10. 0. 0.

STEELE.

T.

N° 249. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1711.

Γελως ακαιρο εν βροτοις δεινον κακον.

Mirth out of season is a grievous ill.

Frag. Vet. Poet.

WHEN HEN I make choice of a subject that has not been treated on by others, I throw together my reflections on it without any order or method, so that they may appear rather in the looseness and freedom of an essay, than in the regularity of a set discourse. It is after this manner that I shall consider laughter and ridicule in my present paper.

Man is the merriest species of the creation; all above and below him are serious. He sees things in a different light from other beings, and finds his mirth arising from objects that perhaps cause something like pity or displeasure in higher natures. Laughter is indeed a very good counterpoise, to the

spleen; and it seems but reasonable that we should be capable of receiving joy from what is no real good to us, since we can receive grief from what is no real evil.

I have in my forty-seventh paper raised a speculation on the notion of a modern philosopher', who describes the first motive of laughter to be a secret comparison which we make between ourselves and the persons we laugh at; or, in other words, that satisfaction which we receive from the opinion of some pre-eminence in ourselves, when we see the absurdities of another, or when we reflect on any past absurdities of our own. This seems to hold in most cases, and we may observe that the vainest part of mankind are the most addicted to this passion.

I have read a sermon of a conventual in the church of Rome, on those words of the wise man, ‘I said of laughter, it is mad; and of mirth, what does it?' Upon which he laid it down as a point of doctrine, that laughter was the effect of original sin, and that Adam could not laugh before the fall.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus far it may be looked upon as a weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it, and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.

The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the