tally unprofitable and even dangerous to converse: My late friend, the learned Dr. Delany, at the end of his anonymous Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks, published a short original discourse of Swift on Good Manners; which contains more to the purpose in one page of it, than you will find in the whole volume of the courtly Earl, so highly applauded by ignorant people for his knowledge of the world.

We are apt to look upon good manners as a lighter sort of qualification, lying without the system of morality and Christian duty; which a man may possess or not possess, and yet be a very good man, but there is no foundation for such an opinion: the Apostle St. Paul hath plainly comprehended it in his wellknown description of charity, which signifies the friendship of Christians, and is extended to so many cases, that no man can practise that virtue and be guilty of ill manners. Shew me the man, who in his conversation discovers no signs that he is puffed up with pride; who never behaves himself unseemly or with impropriety; who neither envies nor censures; who is kind and patient towards his

Ασχημόνως.

friends;

friends; who seeketh not his own, but considers others rather than himself, and gives them the preference; I say, that man is not only all that we intend by a gentleman, but much more: he really is, what all artificial courtesy affects to be, a philanthropist, a friend to mankind; whose company will delight while it improves, and whose good will rarely be evil spoken of. Christianity therefore is the best foundation of what we call good manners; and of two persons who have equal knowledge of the world, he that is the best Christian will be the best gentleman.

LET

LETTER III.

ON TEMPERANCE.

A HEALTHY body and a sedate mind are blessings, without which this life, considered in itself, is little better than a punishment: and you should reflect on this while you are young, before intemperance has brought you into bondage: for it will be too late to persuade, when the judgment is depraved and weakened by ill habits. The epicure, by attempting to make too much of this life, shortens its period, and lessens its value. Instead of being the life of a man, it is scarcely so much as the life of a beast; for most beasts know when to be satisfied.

I have been led into these reflections by seeing in the news-papers the death of Gulosus, a country gentleman in the west of England, a man of good parts, a friendly disposition, and agreeable conversation. He was naturally of a strong constitution, and might have lasted to a good old age; but he is gone before his time, through an error in opinion, which has destroyed more than the sword. The sports of

the

the field, to which he was much addicted, procured him a great appetite; and by the favour of a neighbour, who had the merit of keeping a full table, he had daily opportunities of gratifying it at an easy rate. He asked a friend, how much port a man might drink without hurting himself? This question was put to a valetudinarian, who gave it as his private opinion, that a pint in a day was more than would do any man good. There, says he, you and I differ for I am convinced that one bottle after dinner will never hurt any man that uses exercise. Under this persuasion, he persevered in his custom of eating and drinking as much as he could; though the excess of one day obliged him to take a large dose of rhubarb the next: so that his life was a continual struggle between fulness and physic, till nature was wea ried out, and he sunk all at once, at the age of forty, under the stroke of an apoplexy. When nature fails in a strong man, the change is of ten very sudden. I who am obliged to live by rule, and am hitherto alive beyond hope, have seen the end of many younger and stronger men, who have unhappily presumed upon their strength, and have persevered in a constant habit of eating and drinking without reserve, till their digestive powers have failed, and their

whole

whole constitution has been shattered; so that either death, or incurable infirmity, has been the consequence.

What can be the reason, why the French people are so much less troubled with distempers, and are so much more lively in their spirits than the English? A gentleman of learning, with whom I had the pleasure of conversing at Paris, made this observation on the subject: "You English people give no rest to your faculties you take three meals every day, and live in constant fulness without any relief: thus nature is overcharged, crudities are accumulated in the vessels of the body, and you fall early into apoplexies, palsies, insanity, or hopeless stupidity. Whereas, if we are guilty of any excess, our meagre days, which are two in a week, bring us into order again; and if these should be insufficient, the season of Lent comes in to our relief, which is pretty sure to answer the purpose.

It is much to be lamented, and we are suffering for it in mind and body, that in these latter days of the Reformation, we have been so dreadfully afraid of superstition, that we have at length discarded every wholesome and necessary regulation; and because we do not whip our skins like the monks of antiquity,

VOL. XI.

we