ings of his neighbours, and to which we can feldom be prompted by a lofty spirit of ambition ; actions which the heart can record, but which the tongue is rarely competent to relate. Thefe belong to the leffer morality. It should feem as if our temper and the permanent character of our minds, fhould be derived from the greater morality; but that the ordinary and establifhed carreer of our conduct, fhould have reference to the lefs. No doubt a man of eminent endowments and fortunate fituation may do more good by the practice of the greater morality, than he can do mifchief by the neglect of the lefs. But, even in him, the leffer moralities, as they are practifed or neglected, will produce important effects. The neglect of them, however illuftrious may be the tenour of his life, and however eminent his public fervices, will reflect a fhade of ambiguity upon his character. Thus authors, whofe writings have been fraught with the feeds of general happiness, but whofe conduct towards their relatives or acquaintance has been attended with any glaring defect, have feldom obtained much credit for purity of principle. With the ordinary rate of mankind it is worfe: when they have parted with the leffer moralities, they have : nearly parted with every thing. The The great line of diftinction between these two branches of morality, is that the lefs is of incomparably more frequent demand. We may rife up and lie down for weeks and months together, without being once called upon for the practice of any grand and emphatical duty. But it will be strange if a day pass over our heads, without affording fcope for the leffer moralities. They furnish therefore the most obvious teft as to the habitual temper of our lives. Another important remark which flows from this confideration, is that the leffer moralities, however minute in their conftituent particles, and however they may be paffed over by the fupercilious as unworthy regard, are of great importance in the estimate of human happiness. It is rarely that the opportunity occurs for a man to confer on me a ftriking benefit. But, every time that I meet him, he may demonftrate his kindness, his fympathy, and, by attentions almost too minute for calculation, add new vigour to the ftream of complacence and philanthropy that circulates in my veins. Hence it appears that the leffer moralities are of most importance, where politeness is commonly least thought of, in the bofom of family intercourfe, and where people have occafion noft conftantly to affociate together. If I fee the the father of a family perpetually exerting himfelf for what he deems to be their welfare, if he give the most unequivocal proofs of his attachment, if he cannot hear of any mifchance happening to them without agony, at the fame time that he is their defpot and their terror, bursting out into all the fury of paffion, or preferving a four and painful moroseness that checks all the kindly effufions of their foul, I fhall regard this man as an abortion, and I may reasonably doubt whether, by his mode of proceeding, he does not traverse their welfare in more respects than he promotes it. Rouffeau has obferved that man is by nature unamiable. There is ufually fomething ambiguous in the ufe of this term, nature. If he means that man, in the folitary ftate of exiftence, in which he delights to defcribe him, and which he reprefents as the perfection of a human being, has few of the focial affections, this cannot be difputed. The favage ftate, as it exifts in fome parts of Africa and America, is by no means deftitute of affections. There are no where perhaps more affectionate fathers and hufbands. They love, as they hate, with uncommon energy and fervour. Their attachment to their guests, their benefactors, and their friends, is ardent and unalterablo. If therefore they appear in any respect unamiable, it is not because they are more selfish, or have fewer affections, than the civilifed nations of the world. It is fimply because their minds are not fubtilifed. It is because their intellectual obfervation has not grown curious and microscopical, and they fee things only in maffes and in the grofs. None more ready than they to perform trying fervices, to expofe themfelves to the fury of every clement, to fuffer all the privations and all the tortures of which our na ture is fufceptible, for the advantage of those they love. In thefe cafes they can identify themselves with the object of their attachment. But they cannot do fo in minuter and more ordinary matters. They have not analyfed the elements of the human mind, and fcrutinifed its hiftory. Gulliver's Houyhnmn is a favage, who cries repeatedly to the unfortunate wanderer to go fafter, and never difcovers his incapacity or his pain, till it is in the moft exprefs manner reprefented to him. Certain perfons calling them-' felves philanthropists and patriots, are like the favages of which we treat, when they infist almoft exclufively upon the greater duties, and represent the petty kindneffes of human life as fcarcely worthy the regard of a citizen and a man. Goldsmith 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, whofe heart is ftored with the genuine affections of a man, and in whom cultivation has given inceffant activity to philanthropy. How enviable is his ftate, to whom every door that he frequents, Flies wide, and almoft leaps from off its hinges, While his approaches make a little holiday, And every face is drefs'd in fmiles to meet him! ROWE. This is one of the great circumftances diftinguishing between the civilifed and the favage ftate; the filent communication of the eye, the lively attention that marks every shade of gradation in another's pleasure or pain, the nameless kindneffes that perfuade the receiver more forcibly, or, at least, more cordially, of the attachment of the performer, than great fervices are ever enabled to do. Again; in civilised fociety there is a mutual harmony and correspondence between the politeness of the active party, and the state of fenfation in the paffive. In fuch perfons particularly as have their minds early roufed, whether accidentally, or by the judicious proceeding of |