HONOR.

TRUE honor (says doctor Hildrup) is seated in the soul. It is a kind of sons-persennis, rising from a generous heart, and flowing with a natural and easy descent into all the different traces of life, and channels of duty; refreshing, invigorating, and adorning all the faculties of the soul, language of the tongue, the very air of the face, the motion of the body. It displays itself in a natural unaffected greatness and firmness of mind, improved by a train of religious reflections, and generous actions, in which personal virtue and real merit truly consist.

The bulk of mankind are caught by shew. The pompous sound of titles and glitter of ornaments strike their senses, attract their attention, raise their admiration, and extort from them all that reverence which is due only to eminent and distinguished merit; while real virtue and true honor pass silently thro' the world, unheeded and unregarded, but by the happy and discerning few, who are sensible of its merit, or enjoy the blessed communication of its influence.

For, to do good, to be lovers of mankind, to alleviate the distresses, and promote the peace and happiness of our fellow creatures, is the highest honor, the noblest ambition that can enter into the heart of man. But the

bulk of mankind judge otherwise. Noise and show, title and equipage, glitter and grandeur, constitute the whole idea of honor, and whoever can command an interest sufficient to procure, and an affluence sufficient to support them, becomes thereby not only a man of honor, but even a subordinate fountain of honor, enabled to produce others after his kind, and propagate the honorable species from generation to generation.

The man of honor is an internal, the person of honor an external; the one a real, the other a fictitious character. I am therefore never surprised to see or hear such things attempted, said, and done by a person of honor, which a man of honor would blush to think of.

A person of honor may be a profane, irreligious libertine ; a penurious, proud, revengeful coward; may insult his inferiors, oppress his tenants and servants, debauch his neighbors' wives and daughters, defraud his creditors, and prostitute his public faith for a protection, may associate with sots and drunkards, sharpers and gamesters, in order to increase his fortune; I say, it is not impossible but that a person of honor may be guilty of all these; but it is absolutely impossible for a man of honor to be guilty of any one of them.

'Tis in virtue-that alone can give The lasting honor, and bid glory live;

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On virtue's basis only, fame can rise,

To stand the storm of age, and reach the skies: Arts, conquests, greatness, feel the stroke of fate,

Shrink sudden, and betray th' incumbent weight:

Time with contempt the faithless props surveys,

And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

Anciently the Romans worshipped virtue and honor for gods; whence it was that they built two temples, which were so seated, that none could enter the temple of honor, without passing through the temple of virtue.

Wisdom and virtue make the poor rich, and the rich honorable.

Honors are in this world under no regulations; true quality is neglected, virtue is oppressed, and vice triumphant. The last day will rectify the disorder, and assign to every. one a station suitable to the dignity of his character: Ranks will then be adjusted, and precedency set right.

True honor, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the same effects.

The sense of honor is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble; or in such as have been cultivated by great examples, or a refined education.

Honor's a sacred tie, the law of kings,
The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,
That aids and strengthens virtue where it
meets her,

And imitates her actions where she is not.
It ought not to be sported with.

IMPATIENCE.

AN impatient man is hurried along by his

:

wild and furious desires, into an abyss of miseries; the more extensive his power is, the more fatal is his impatience to him he will wait for nothing, he will not give himself the time to take any measures, he forces all things to satisfy his wishes, he breaks the boughs to gather the fruit before it is ripe, he will needs reap, when the wise husbandman is sowing; all he does in haste is ill done, and can have no longer duration than volatile desires: such as these are the senseless projects of the man who thinks he is able to do every thing, and who, by giving himself up to his desires, abuses his own power.

Impatience is the principal cause of most of our irregularities and extravagances. I would sometimes have paid a guinea to be at some

particular ball or assembly, and something has prevented my going there; after it was over, I would not give a shilling to have been there. I would pay a crown at any time for a venison ordinary; but after having dined on beef or mutton, I would not give a penny to have had it venison.

Think frequently on this, ye giddy and ye extravagant.

INTEMPERANCE.

-WAR its thousands slays,

Peace its ten thousands; in th' embattled plain,
Tho' death exults, and claps his raven wings,
Yet reigns he not ev'n there so absolute,
So merciless as in your frantic scenes
Of midnight revel and tumultuous mirth;
Where in th' intoxicating draught conceal'd,
Or couch'd beneath the glance of lawless love,
He snares the simple youth, who nought sus-
pecting,

Means to be blest :-But finds himself undone. Down the smooth stream of time the stripling darts,

Cay as the morn; bright glows the vernal skies,

Hope swells his sails, and passion steers his

course;

Safe glides his little bark along the shore,