[Footnote 2:  Fifty]

[Footnote 3:  Gabling]

[Footnote 4:  Vanini, like Giordano Bruno, has his memory dishonoured through the carelessness with which men take for granted the assertions of his enemies.  Whether burnt or not, every religious thinker of the sixteenth century who opposed himself to the narrowest views of those who claimed to be the guardians of orthodoxy was remorselessly maligned.  If he was the leader of a party, there were hundreds to maintain his honour against calumny.  If he was a solitary searcher after truth, there was nothing but his single life and work to set against the host of his defamers.  Of Vanini’s two books, one was written to prove the existence of a God, yet here is Mr. Budgell calling him the most celebrated champion for the cause of atheism.]

[Footnote 5:  Casimir Lyszynski was a Polish Knight, executed at Warsaw in 1689, in the barbarous manner which appears to tickle Mr. Budgell’s fancy.  It does not appear that he had written anything.]

* * * * *

No. 390.  Wednesday, May 28, 1712.  Steele.

  ’Non pudendo sed non faciendo id quod non decet impudentiae nomen
  effugere debemus.’

  Tull.

Many are the Epistles I receive from Ladies extremely afflicted that they lie under the Observation of scandalous People, who love to defame their Neighbours, and make the unjustest Interpretation of innocent and indifferent Actions.  They describe their own Behaviour so unhappily, that there indeed lies some Cause of Suspicion upon them.  It is certain, that there is no Authority for Persons who have nothing else to do, to pass away Hours of Conversation upon the Miscarriages of other People; but since they will do so, they who value their Reputation should be cautious of Appearances to their Disadvantage.  But very often our young Women, as well as the middle-aged and the gay Part of those growing old, without entering into a formal League for that purpose, to a Woman agree upon a short Way to preserve their Characters, and go on in a Way that at best is only not vicious.  The Method is, when an ill-naturd or talkative Girl has said any thing that bears hard upon some part of another’s Carriage, this Creature, if not in any of their little Cabals, is run down for the most censorious dangerous Body in the World.  Thus they guard their Reputation rather than their Modesty; as if Guilt lay in being under the Imputation of a Fault, and not in a Commission of it.  Orbicilla is the kindest poor thing in the Town, but the most blushing Creature living:  It is true she has not lost the Sense of Shame, but she has lost the Sense of Innocence.  If she had more Confidence, and never did anything which ought to stain her Cheeks, would she not be much more modest without that ambiguous Suffusion, which is the Livery both of Guilt and Innocence?  Modesty consists in being conscious of no Ill, and not in being ashamed