11.  As for me, I am a friend of the Gods and of good men, an agreeable companion to the artisan, a household guardian to the fathers of families, a patron and protector of servants, and associate in all true and generous friendships.  The banquets of my votaries are never costly, but always delicious; for none eat or drink at them who are not invited by hunger and thirst.  Their slumbers are sound, and their wakings cheerful.

12.  My young men have the pleasure of hearing themselves praised by those who are in years, and those who are in years, of being honoured by those who are young.  In a word, my followers are favoured by the gods, beloved by their acquaintance, esteemed by their country, and after the close of their labours, honoured by posterity.

13.  We know by the life of this memorable hero, to which of these two ladies he gave up his heart; and I believe, every one who reads this, will do him the justice to approve his choice.

14.  I very much admire the speeches of these ladies, as containing in them the chief arguments for a life of virtue, or a life of pleasure, that could enter into the thoughts of an heathen:  but am particularly pleased with the different figures he gives the two goddesses.  Our modern authors have represented pleasure or vice with an alluring face, but ending in snakes and monsters:  here she appears in all the charms of beauty, though they are all false and borrowed; and by that means compose a vision entirely natural and pleasing.

15.  I have translated this allegory for the benefit of the youth in general; and particularly of those who are still in the deplorable state of non-existence, and whom I most earnestly intreat to come into the world.  Let my embryos shew the least inclination to any single virtue, and I shall allow it to be a struggling towards birth.

16.  I do not expect of them that, like the hero in the foregoing story, they should go about as soon as they are born, with a club in their hands, and a lion’s skin on their shoulders, to root out monsters and destroy tyrants; but as the finest author of all antiquity has said upon this very occasion, though a man has not the abilities to distinguish himself in the most shining parts of a great character, he has certainly the capacity of being just, faithful, modest, and temperate.

Virtue rewarded; The History of Amanda.

SPECTATOR, No. 375.

1.  I have more than once had occasion to mention a noble saying of Seneca the philosopher, that a virtuous person struggling with misfortunes, and rising above them, is an object on which the gods themselves may look down with delight.  I shall therefore set before my readers a scene of this kind of distress in private life, for the speculation of this day.

2.  An eminent citizen, who had lived in good fashion and credit, was by a train of accidents, and by an unavoidable perplexity in his affairs, reduced to a low condition.  There is a modesty usually attending faultless poverty, which made him rather chuse to reduce his manner of living to his present circumstances, than solicit his friends, in order to support the shew of an estate, when the substance was gone.