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obtain over the wisest men? As we know entire nations, where death is not only despised, but received with the greatest triumph, and where children offer themselves to be whipped to death without changing countenance. Where riches were in such contempt, that the poorest and most wretched citizen would not have deigned to stoop for a purse of crowns; and we know regions, fruitful in all manner of provisions, where the only diet is bread, cresses, and water.

Did not Custom work that miracle in Chios, that, during seven hundred years, neither wise nor maid was ever known to commit any act to the prejudice of her honour. To conclude, there is nothing, in my opinion, that Custom does not or may not do; and therefore, with good reason, Pindar stiles her the queen and empress of the world.

He that was seen to beat his father, and reproved for so doing, made answer, that it was the Custom of their family; that, in like manner, his father had beaten his grandfather, and his grandfather his great grandfather; " and 66 this," says he, pointing to his son, "when

"he

"he comes of age shall beat me." And the father, whom the son dragged along the streets, commanded him to stop at a certain door, for he himself, he said, had never dragged his father beyond that spot, which was the utmost limit of the hereditary insolence, that the sons used to practise upon the fathers of their family.

Every one having an inward veneration for the opinions and manners approved and received among his own people, cannot, without great reluctance, depart from them. The principal effect of Custom, is so to seize and ensnare us, that it is hardly in our power to disengage ourselves from its grasp, or properly to weigh the things it enjoins. From whence it is believed, that whatever is contrary to Custom, is contrary also to reason, and how improperly this opinion is entertained God knows. Men receive the precepts and admonitions of truth as generally directed to the lower sort, and never particularly to themselves; and, instead of applying them to their own manners, very improperly commit them to memory, without suffering themselves to be instructed or converted

B 6

verted by them. From whence comes it to pass, that there are double laws; those of honour, and those of justice; in many thingspositively opposite to one another? By the law of arms, he shall be degraded from all nobility and honour, who puts up with an affront; and by the civil law, he who vindicates his reputation by revenge, incurs a capital punishment; and he who applies himself to the law for a reparation of offence done to his honour, disgraces himself; yet these two actions are thus distinguished, one for war, the other for peace; one for justice, the other for valour.

In regard to indifferent things. Among these we may reckon clothe?, which were originally intended for the service and convenience of the body, but being perverted from their real use of grace and decency, are frequently fantastic and ridiculous: yet this consideration will not lead any man of understanding to decline the general mode, as singularity is rather a mark of folly and vain affectation than of sound reason. in following the fashion of the time, a man may retire within himself, and retain the liberty of

But

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judging freely on all things. Society has no power over our thoughts, though, if we are required, we ought to sacrifice our lives end fortunes to the public service; like the great and good Socrates, who refused to preserve his life by acting in disobedience even to a wicked and unjust magistrate.

Those who observe the laws, deserve the thanks of the community. A man bred in a land of liberty, and subject to no dominion but his own authority, does not submit to be ruled by a wiser head than his own; he thinks all other forms of government monstrous and contrary to nature; while he who is inured to monarchy, is equally partial to that species of government; and although the sovereign is a grievous tyrant, and is with difficulty deposed, he instantly endeavours, with the fame difficulty, to create another, not being able to hate the government under which he was born.

It is by the mediation of Custom, that every person is content with the place in which he is planted by nature. The Highlander no more pants after the salubrious air of Taurain,

than

than the starved Scythian after the delightful fields of Thessaly*.

Whoever will disengage himself from this violent prejudice of Custom, will perceive several things admitted that have no other plea of utility than the hoary head and rivelled face of ancient use. As an example; what can be more strange, than to see people compelled to obey and pay reverence to laws which they never understood; and to be bound in all their affairs, both of public and private concern, by rules which they could not possibly know, being neither written nor published in their own language? I think myself highly indebted to fortune, according to our historian's report, that a Gascon, a countryman of mine, first opposed Charlemagne, when he attempted to impose latin and imperial laws. For my own

* Nature, a mother kind alike to all,

Still grants her bliss at labour's earnest call ;
With food as well the peafant is fupply'd
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's fhelvy side,
And though the rocky crested fummits frown,
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down.
GOLDSMITH'S TRAVELLER.

part,

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