of themselves; it is what they do not like, and what they never would have done; no; no tortures should ever have forced it from them, if they had, not been thus unjustly and monstrously accused.  But, in these cases; justice is surely due to one’s self, as well as to others; and when our character is attacked, we may say in our own justification, what otherwise we never would have said.  This thin veil of Modesty drawn before Vanity, is much too transparent to conceal it, even from very moderate discernment.

Others go more modestly and more slyly still (as they think) to work; but in my mind still more ridiculously.  They confess themselves (not without some degree of shame and confusion) into all the Cardinal Virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses and then owning their misfortune in being made up of those weaknesses.  They cannot see people suffer without sympathizing with, and endeavoring to help them.  They cannot see people want, without relieving them, though truly their own circumstances cannot very well afford it.  They cannot help speaking truth, though they know all the imprudence of it.  In short, they know that, with all these weaknesses, they are not fit to live in the world, much less to thrive in it.  But they are now too old to change, and must rub on as well as they can.  This sounds too ridiculous and ‘outre’, almost, for the stage; and yet, take my word for it, you will frequently meet with it upon the common stage of the world.  And here I will observe, by the bye, that you will often meet with characters in nature so extravagant, that a discreet dramatist would not venture to set them upon the stage in their true and high coloring.

This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human nature that it descends even to the lowest objects; and one often sees people angling for praise, where, admitting all they say to be true (which, by the way, it seldom is), no just praise is to be caught.  One man affirms that he has rode post an hundred miles in six hours; probably it is a lie:  but supposing it to be true, what then?  Why he is a very good post-boy, that is all.  Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting; out of charity, I will believe him a liar; for, if I do not, I must think him a beast.

Such, and a thousand more, are the follies and extravagances, which vanity draws people into, and which always defeat their own purpose; and as Waller says, upon another subject,—­

     “Make the wretch the most despised,
     Where most he wishes to be prized.”