Application to you is in behalf of the Hen-peckt in ge neral, and I defire a Differtation from you in Defence of us. You have, as I am informed, very good Authorities in our Favour, and hope you will not omit the mention of the Renowned Socrates, and his Philofophick Refignation to his Wife Xantippe. This would be a very good Office to the World in general, for the Hen-peckt are powerful in their Quality and Numbers, not only in Cities but in Courts; in the latter they are ever the moft obfequious, in the former the moft wealthy of all Men. When you have confidered Wedlock thoroughly, you ought to enter into the Suburbs of Matrimony, and < give us an Account of the Thraldom of kind Keepers and irrefolute Lovers; the Keepers who cannot quit their Fair Ones tho' they fee their approaching Ruin; the Lovers who dare not marry, tho' they know they fhall never be happy without the Miftreffes whom they cannot purchase on other Terms.

Τ

WHAT will be a great Embellishment to your Difcourfe, will be, that you may find Inftances of the Haughty, the Proud, the Frolick, the Stubborn, who are each of them in fecret downright Slaves to their Wives or Miftreffes. I muft beg of you in the laft Place to dwell upon this, That the Wife and Valiant in all Ages have been Hen-peckt: and that the fturdy Tempers who are not Slaves to Affection, owe that Exemption to their being enthralled by Ambition, Avarice, or fome meaner Paffion. I have ten thousand thousand Things more to fay, but my Wife fees me Writing, and will, according to Cuftom, be confulted, if I do not feal this immediately.

Yours,

Nathaniel Henrooft,

Saturday,

N° 177. Saturday, September 22.

Qis enim bonus, aut face dignus

Arcana, qualem Cereris vult effe facerdos,
Ulla aliena fibi credat mala?

IN

Juv.

N one of my laft Week's Papers I treated of GoodNature, as it is the Effect of Conftitution; I fhall now speak of it as it is a Moral Virtue. The first may make a Man easy in himself and agreeable to others, but implies no Merit in him that is poffeffed of it. A Man is no more to be praised upon this Account, than because he has a regular Pulfe or a good Digeftion. This Good-Nature however in the Conftitution, which Mr. Dryden fomewhere calls a Milkiness of Blood, is an admirable Groundwork for the other. In order therefore to try our Good-Nature, whether it arifes from the Body or the Mind, whether it be founded in the Animal or Rational Part of our Nature, in a Word, whether it be fuch as is entituled to any other Reward, befides that fecret Satis faction and Contentment of Mind which is effential to it, and the kind Reception it procures us in the World, we must examine it by the following Rules.

FIRST, Whether it acts with Steddinefs and Uniformity in Sickness and in Health, in Profperity and in Adverfity; if otherwife, it is to be looked upon as nothing elfe but an Irradiation of the Mind from fome new Supply of Spirits, or a more kindly Circulation of the Blood. Sir Francis Bacon mentions a cunning Sollicitor, who would never ask a Favour of a great Man before Dinner; but took Care to prefer his Petition at a Time when the Party petitioned had his Mind free from Care, and his Appetites in good Humour. Such a tranfient temporary Good-Nature as this, is not that Philanthropie, that Love of Mankind, which deferves the Title of a Moral Virtue,

THE

THE next way of a Man's bringing his Good-Nature to the Teft, is, to confider whether it operates according tothe Rules of Reafon and Duty: For if, notwithstanding its general Benevolence to Mankind, it makes no Diftinction between its Objects, if it exerts it felf promifcuously towards the Deferving and the Undeferving, if it relieves alike the Idle and the Indigent, if it gives it felf up to the first Petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by Accident than Choice, it may pafs for an amiable Instinct, but muft not affume the Name of a Moral Virtue.

THE Third Tryal of Good-Nature will be, the examining our felves, whether or no we are able to exert it to our own Disadvantage, and employ it on proper Objects, notwithstanding any little Pain, Want, or Inconvenience which may arife to our felves from it: In a Word, whe ther we are willing to rifque any Part of our Fortune, our Reputation, our Health or Eafe, for the Benefit of Mankind. Among all thefe Expreffions of Good-Nature. I fhall fingle out that which goes under the general Name of Charity, as it confifts in relieving 'the Indigent; that being a Tryal of this Kind which offers it felf to us almoft at all Times and in every Place.

I fhould propofe it as a Rule to every one who is provided with any Competency of Fortune more than fufficient for the Neceffaries of Life, to lay afide a certain Proportion of his Income for the Ufe of the Poor. This I would look upon as an Offering to him who has a Right to the Whole, for the Ufe of thofe whom, in the Paffage hereafter mentioned, he has defcribed as his own Reprefentatives upon Earth. At the fame Time we fhould manage our Charity with fuch Prudence and Caution, that we may not hurt our own Friends or Relations, whilst we are doing Good to those who are Strangers to us.

THIS may poffibly be explained better by an Example than by a Rule.

EUGENIUS is a Man of an univerfal Good-Nature, and generous beyond the Extent of his Fortune; but withal fo prudent in the Oeconomy of his Affairs, that what goes out in Charity is made up by good Management. Eugenius has what the World calls Two hundred Pounds

a Year; but never values himself above Ninefcore, as not thinking he has a Right to the Tenth Part, which he always appropriates to charitable Ufes. To this Sum he frequently makes other voluntary Additions, infomuch that in a good Year, for fuch he accounts thofe in which he has been able to make greater Bounties than ordinary, he has given above twice that Sum to the Sickly and Indigent. Eugenius prescribes to himself many particular Days of Fafting and Abftinence, in order to encreafe his private Bank of Charity, and fets afide what would be the current Expences of thofe Times for the Ufe of the Poor. He often goes a-foot where his Bufinefs calls him, and at the End of his Walk has given a Shilling, which in his ordinary Methods of Expence would have gone for CoachHire, to the firft Neceffitous Perfon that has fallen in his Way. I have known him, when he has been going to a Play or an Opera, divert the Money which was defigned for that Purpofe, upon an Object of Charity whom he has met with in the Street; and afterwards pafs his Evening in a Coffee-Houfe, or at a Friend's Fire-fide, with much greater Satisfaction to himself than he could have received from the most exquifite Entertainments of the Theatre. By thefe means he is generous without impoverifhing himself, and enjoys his Estate by making it the Property of others.

THERE are few Men fo cramped in their private Affairs, who may not be charitable after this manner, without any Disadvantage to themfelves, or Prejudice to their Families. It is but fometimes facrificing a Diverfion or Convenience to the Poor, and turning the ufuak Courfe of our Expences into a better Channel. This is, I think, not only the most prudent and convenient, but the moft meritorious Piece of Charity, which we can put in Practice. By this Method we in fome measure share the Neceffities of the Poor at the fame Time that we relieve them, and make our felves not only their Patrons, but their Fellow-Sufferers.

SIR Thomas Brown, in the laft Part of his Religio Me dici, in which he defcribes his Charity in feveral Heroick Inftances, and with a noble Heat of Sentiments, mentions that Verfe in the Proverbs of Solomon, He that giveth to the Poor lendeth to the Lord There is more Rhetorick

in that one Sentence, fays he, than in a Library of Sermons; and indeed if thofe Sentences were understood by the Reader, with the fame Emphafis as they are delivered by the Auhor, we needed not thofe Volumes of Inftructions, but might be honeft by an Epi

tome.

THIS Paffage in Scripture is indeed wonderfully perfwafive; but I think the fame Thought is carried much further in the New Teftament, where our Saviour tells. us in a most pathetick manner, that he shall hereafter regard the Cloathing of the Naked, the Feeding of the Hungry, and the Vifiting of the Imprifoned, as Offices done to himself, and reward them accordingly. Purfuant to those Paffages in Holy Scripture, I have fomewhere met with the Epitaph of a charitable Man, which has very much pleafed me. I cannot recollect the Words, but the Senfe of it is to this Purpose: What I spent I loft; what I poffeffed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.

SINCE I am thus infenfibly engaged in Sacred Writ, I cannot forbear making an Extract of feveral Paffages. which I have always read with great Delight in the Book of Job. It is the Account which that Holy Man gives of his Behaviour in the Days of his Profperity, and if confidered only as a human Compofition, is a finer Picture of a charitable and good-natur'd Man than is to be met with in any other Author.

OH that I were as in Months past, as in the Days when God preferved me: When his Candle fhined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness: When the Almighty was yet with me: when my Children were about me: When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured out rivers of oyl.

WHEN the Ear heard me, then it bleffed me; and when the Eye faw me it gave witness to me. Because I de livered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caufed the Widow's heart to fing for joy. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was 1 to thẻ. lame; I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I fearched out. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble, was not my Soul grieved for the poor? Let me

be