manner represented to him. Certain persons calling themselves philanthropists and patriots, are like the savages of which we treat, when they insist almost exclusively upon the greater duties, and represent the petty kindnesses of human life as scarcely worthy the regard of a citizen and a man.

Goldsmith has introduced his Vicar of Wakefield as remarking, that he had ever been a great lover of happy human faces. Such will always be the feeling of him, whose heart is stored with the genuine affections of a man, and in whom cultivation has given incessant activity to philanthropy, How enviable is his state, to whom every door that he frequents,

Flies wide, and almost leaps from off its hinges,
To give him entrance ;-

While his approaches make a little holiday,

And every face is dressed in smiles to meet him!

ROWE.

This is one of the great circumstances distinguishing between the civilised and the savage state; the silent communication of the eye, the lively attention that marks every shade of gradation in another's pleasure or pain, the nameless kindnesses that persuade the receiver more forcibly, or, at least, more cordially, of the attachment of the performer, than great services are ever enabled to do.

Again; in civilised society there is a mutual harmony and correspondence between the politeness of the active party, and the state of sensation

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in the passive. In such persons particularly as have their minds early roused, whether accidentally, or by the judicious proceeding of their institutor, and promise to be, in more than an ordinary degree, useful members of the commonwealth, it is inconceivable how numerous and delicate are their sensations, and how exquisite is their feeling of pleasure or pain. The slightest circumstances, imperceptible to a common eye, and scarcely adverted to by the agent, often produce an indelible impression. There is something exceedingly deceitful in human nature in this respect. A shrinking sensibility will not seldom hide itself under an unaltered exterior. This is frequently illustrated in the education of children. If they are harshly reproved, they disdain perhaps to lament, they are too proud to change a muscle, and we inwardly grieve for their impenetrable hardness, while their soul is secretly torn with conflicting, not seldom with dignified, emotions.

Nor is this sensibility by any means confined to persons of extraordinary talents. The worm that we trample upon, writhes beneath our foot, and is agonised, though in silence. It is a trite observation that one person shall less humble his suitor by a refusal, than another by compliance; so great is the importance that attaches itself to things apparently trivial. That man knows little of human nature, and is either endued with a very small por

tion of sensibility, or is seldom in the habit of putting himself in the place of another, who is not forward in the practice of minute attentions. When a modest and unassured person enters a room, he is anxious about his gestures, and feels the disposition of every limb and feature as a sort of weight upon his mind. A supercilious look, a dubious smile, an unceremonious accost, from one of the company, pierces him to the soul. On the contrary, at how cheap a rate may he be encouraged and made happy! What kind-hearted man would refuse to procure ease for him at so small an expence?

Perhaps the sort of sensibility here described is to be regarded as a defect. Perhaps, upon a nice adjustment of the value of other men's good opinion on the one hand, and of independence on the other, we shall find that he ought to have been more firm and intrepid. But a judicious moralist will not be abrupt in the suppression of sensibility. The form may be wrong, but the substance ought to remain. In a word, wherever civilisation exists, sensibility will be its attendant; a sensibility, which cannot be satisfied without much kindness, nor without a kindness of that condescending nature, that considers the whole chain of our feelings, and is desirous, out of petty materials, to compose the sum of our happiness. Politeness is not precisely that scheme and sys

tem of behaviour which can only be learned in the fashionable world. There are many things in the system of the fashionable world, that are practised, not to encourage but depress, not to produce happiness but mortification. These, by whatever name they are called, are the reverse of genuine politeness; and are accordingly commonly known by the denomination of rudeness, a word of exactly opposite application. Much true politeness may often be found in a cottage. It cannot however conspicuously exist, but in a mind, itself unembarrassed, and at liberty to attend to the feelings of others; and it is distinguished by an open ingenuousness of countenance, and an easy and flowing manner. It is therefore necessarily graceful. It may undoubtedly best be learned in the society of the unembarrassed, the easy and the graceful. It is most likely to exist among those persons who, delivered from the importunate pressure of the first wants of our nature, have leisure to attend to the delicate and evanescent touches of the soul.

Politeness has been said to be the growth of courts, and a manner frank, abrupt and austere, to be congenial to a republic. If this assertion be true, it is a matter worthy of regret, and it will behove us to put it in the scale as a defect, to be weighed against the advantages that will result from a more equal and independent condition of

mankind. It is however probably founded in mistake. It does not seem reasonable to suppose that the abolition of servility should be the diminution of kindness; and it has already been observed that, where the powers of intellect are strenuously cultivated, sensibility will be their attendant. But, in proportion to the acuteness of any man's feelings, will be, in a majority of cases, his attention and deference to the feelings of others.

SECT. II.

RECIPROCAL CLAIMS OF POLITENESS AND SINCERITY.

A REMARK not unfrequently heard from the professed enemies of politeness, is, I dislike such a person; why should I be at any pains to conceal it? Is it not right that the judgment of mankind respecting the character of individuals, should be divulged? I wish to be understood. I feel in myself no vocation to be a hypocrite.

Are the persons who hold this language, wholly unacquainted with the fallibility of human judgment? Be it observed, that they are usually, of all their species, the most capricious, the most hasty in their judgments, and dogmatical in their decisions. Sober and thinking men, are fearful of being misled in a subject so complex and involved as the study of characters; and have no pleasure in delivering their sentiments in this matter, with