vation of place, or extent of fortune, increases not only the pleasure he has to enjoy, but the duties he has to perform. This, however, moralists have always complained, is apt to be forgotten; the great are ever ready to exercise power, and the rich to purchase pleasure: but the first are not always mindful of benignity, nor the latter of beneficence.

In the lighter duties of life the same rule takes place, and is, in the same manner, but little attended to. In these, indeed, it is more liable to be disregarded from an idea of its unimportance. Yet, to the little and the poor, the behaviour of the great or the rich is often as essential as their conduct. There may be tyranny and injustice in the one, as well as in the other; nay, I have known many men who could forgive the oppression of the powerful, and the encroachments of the wealthy, in more material instances, who never could pardon the haughtiness

of their demeanour, and the fastidiousness of their air.

It is strange, methinks, that the desire of depressing the humble, and overawing the modest, should be so common as it is among those on whom birth or station has conferred superiority. One might wonder how it should ever happen, that people should prefer being feared to being loved; to spread around them the chilness of unsocial grandeur, rather than the warmth of reciprocal attachment. Yet, from the pride of folly, or of education, we find this is often the case; there is scarce any one who cannot recollect instances of persons, who seem to have exchanged all the pleasures of society, all intercourse of the affections, for the cold pre-eminence of state and place.

But, in the ideas of their power, it is proper to inform such persons, they are frequently mistaken. It must be on a mind very contemptible indeed, that mere

greatness can have the effects they are apt to ascribe to it. They cannot blast with a frown, or elevate with a smile, from rank or station alone, without some other qualities attending them. 'Tis with rank and station, as an acquaintance of mine, somewhat of a coxcomb, though a better thing from nature, observed to me of dress: " "Every man," said he, looking at himself in a mirror, " every man can put on a fine coat; but it is not every man who can wear one."

It is by no means so easy to do the honours of a high station, as many who attain high stations are apt to imagine. The importance of a man to himself is a feeling common to all; to settle with propriety the claims of others, as well as of ourselves, requires no inconsiderable degree of discernment; and the jealousy of inferior stations in this matter, will criticise with the utmost nicety the determinations of their superiors. In pro

portion as the great claim respect or adulation, the spirit of those beneath them will commonly refuse it. We see daily examples of men, who go on arrogating dignity, and procuring, contempt; who meet with slights where they demand respect, and are refused even the attention to which they are entitled, because they would impose attention rather than receive it.

But it is not always by haughtiness of demeanour that, people shew themselves most haughty. There is a claim of superiority, amidst the condescension of some men, infinitely more disgusting than the distant dignity of ordinary pride. Somebody has called the part which the inferiors of such people play, "holding the lower end of familiarity." Orgilius keeps a pack of these end-holders constantly about him. He calls them by their names, as he does his hounds; they open at his jests, follow the scent of every observa

tion he makes, and run down every character he attacks. For all this he rewards them exactly as he does his favourite dogs, by allowing them to dirty his parlour, and feed at his table; and, like the master of many a pack, he is despised by all his neighbours who have understanding, and hated by all those who want it.

Nothing is more difficult than the art of a patron; the power of patronising is but one ingredient in its composition. A patron must be able to read mankind, and to conciliate their affections; he must be so deserving of praise, as to be independent of it; yet receive it as if he had no claim, and give it value where it is just, by resisting adulation. He must have that dignity of demeanour, which may keep his place in the circle; yet that gentleness, which may not overpower the most timid, or overawe the meanest. If he patronises the arts, he must know and feel them;