nity. What is true honour but the exercise of right reason? All else is false and frivolous. Is courage honour? What a strange confusion of ideas! A man of honour would, in that case,. make a very despicable figure, if put in the same scale with a Russian bear. Young Hamilton behaved with a true sense of honour-his conduct was reasonable-it had the protection of a sister for its object. But what should we have thought cf Grammont, had he acted a different part? In. what light would he have appeared, had he lived to pierce the heart of the woman that he loved, through the hearts of seven brothers-the very idea is horror!-Yet this he certainly must have done, at least have attempted, had he placed ho-nour in courage rather than in reason.

Had Shrewsbury a right sense of honour when: he challenged Buckingham? More than half the court will tell you that he had-but, how ridicu-lous! Is the defection of an infamous woman a disgrace to the man she forsakes? Far otherwise it is rather a mark of his integrity. The antipathy that vice has to virtue is a proof of this. It was rank cowardice, pusillanimity itself, that provoked Shrewsbury to the challenge. He was afraid that his courage should he doubted if he omitted it.

Yet how universal is this idea of false honour! In one of the campaigns I made with the Duke d'Euguien, an officer, who had lost his mistress, thought it necessary to fight for her. When he

applied to the Duke for permission, the latter asked him whether it was on account of the love he had for her, and whether he wanted, by killing his rival, to recover her. "No," (replied the officer) but if I do not fight, my courage will be doubted." "If that is all," (said the Duke,) you may be easy about the matter. I shall

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give you an opportunity of putting that out of "question; for, to-morrow, I intend to fight my"self."

LETTER V.

ST. EVREMOND TO WALLER.

Inow write to you from the Earl of Devonshire's where I have been for this fortnight past, paying my devotions to the genius of nature. Nothing can be more romantic than this country, except the region of the Valois; and nothing can equal this place * in beauty, but the borders of the Lake.

It was not, however, so much the desire of seeing natural curiosities that drew me down hither. There is a certain moral curiosity an der this roof which I had long wished to see, and my Lord Devonshire had the goodness to indulge me by a very kind invitation.

I need not tell you that I mean the great phi losopher, Mr. Hobbs, so distinguished for the singularity of his sentiments and his disposi

tion.

I arrived a little before dinner, notwithstanding which, the Earl told me he believed I was too late to see Mr. Hobbs that day. "As he does not think like other men, (said he) it is his

Chatsworth. ~

"opinion that he should not live like other "men. I suppose he dined about two hours ago, "and he is now shut up for the rest of the day; "your only time to see him is in the morning; "but then he walks so fast up those hills, that "unless you are mounted on one of my ablest “hunters, you will not keep pace with him.”

It was not long, however, before I obtained an audience extraordinary of this literary potentate; whom I found, like Jupiter, involved inclouds of his own raising. He was entrenched behind a regular battery of ten or twelve guns, charged with a stinking combustible called tobacco. Two or three of these he had fired off,. and replaced them in the same order. A fourth he levelled so mathematically against me, that I was hardly able to maintain my post, though. I assumed the character and dignity of ambassa-. dor from the Republic of Letters" I am sorry "for your Republic, (said Hobbs) for if they "send you to me in that capacity, they ei"ther want me, or are afraid of me. Men have

but two motives for their applications, and. "those are interest and fear. But the latter is, "in my opinion, most predominant." I told him "That my commission extended no farther than

to make him their compliments, and to en

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quire after his health."

If that be all, (re

plied the philosopher) your republic does nothing more than negotiate by the maxim of other states, that is, by hypocrisy. All men

are necessarily in a state of war; but all "authors hate each other from principle. For σε my part, I am at enmity with the whole corps, "from the Bishop of Salisbury down to the bell

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man.-Nay, I hate their writings as much as I "do themselves. There is nothing so pernici"ous as reading. It destroys originality of sen"timent. My Lord Devonshire has more than "ten thousand volumes in his house. I entreat"ed his Lordship to lodge me as far as possible "from that pestilential corner. I have but one "book, and that is Euclid; but I begin to be "tired of him. I believe he has done more harm "than good-He has set fools a reasoning.""There is one thing in Mr. Hobb's conduct, (said Lord D ) that I am unable to account "for-He is always railing at books, yet al"ways adding to their number." "I write, my

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Lord, (answered Hobbs) to shew the folly of writing. Were all the books in the world on "board one vessel, I should feel a greater plea"sure than that Lucretius speaks of, in seeing But should you feel no ten

"the wreck.".