As for the Persons concerned in this Work, the Names of all of them, or at least of such as desire it, shall be published hereafter:  Till which time I must entreat the courteous Reader to suspend his Curiosity, and rather to consider what is written, than who they are that write it.

Having thus adjusted all necessary Preliminaries with my Reader, I shall not trouble him with any more prefatory Discourses, but proceed in my old Method, and entertain him with Speculations on every useful Subject that falls in my Way.

[Footnote 1:  Addison’s papers are marked on the authority of Tickell.]

* * * * *

No. 557.  From Friday, June 18 to Monday, June 21, 1714.  Addison.

  ‘Quippe domum timet ambiguam, Tyriosque bilingues.’

  Virg.

There is nothing, says Plato, so delightful, as the hearing or the speaking of Truth.  For this Reason there is no Conversation so agreeable as that of the Man of Integrity, who hears without any Intention to betray, and speaks without any Intention to deceive.

Among all the Accounts which are given of Cato, I do not remember one that more redounds to his Honour than the following Passage related by Plutarch.  As an Advocate was pleading the Cause of his Client before one of the Praetors, he could only produce a single Witness in a Point where the Law required the Testimony of two Persons; upon which the Advocate insisted on the Integrity of that Person whom he had produced:  but the Praetor told him, That where the Law required two Witnesses he would not accept of one, tho’ it were Cato himself.  Such a Speech from a Person who sat at the Head of a Court of Justice, while Cato was still living, shews us, more than a thousand Examples, the high Reputation this great Man had gained among his Contemporaries upon the Account of his Sincerity.

When such an inflexible Integrity is a little softened and qualified by the Rules of Conversation and Good-breeding, there is not a more shining Virtue in the whole Catalogue of Social Duties.  A Man however ought to take great Care not to polish himself out of his Veracity, nor to refine his Behaviour to the Prejudice of his Virtue.

This Subject is exquisitely treated in the most elegant Sermon of the great British Preacher [1].  I shall beg Leave to transcribe out of it two or three Sentences, as a proper Introduction to a very curious Letter, which I shall make the chief Entertainment of this Speculation.

’The old English Plainness and Sincerity, that generous Integrity of Nature, and Honesty of Disposition, which always argues true Greatness of Mind, and is usually accompanied with undaunted Courage and Resolution, is in a great Measure lost among us.

’The Dialect of Conversation is now-a-days so swelled with Vanity and Compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of Expressions of Kindness