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frank carriage makes me reflect upon

the amiable atonement a man makes in an ingenuous acknowledgement of a fault: all such miscarriages as flow from inadvertency are more than repaid by it; for reason, though not concerned in the injury, employs all its force in the atonement. He that says, he did not design to disoblige you in such an action, does as much as if he should tell you, that though the circumstance which displeased was never in his thoughts, he has that respect for you

that he is unsatisfied till it is wholly out yours. It must be confessed, that when an acknowledgement of an offence is made out of poorness of spirit, and not conviction of heart, the circumstance is quite different: but in the case of my correspondent, where both the notice is taken and the return made in private, the affair begins and ends with the highest grace on each side. To make the acknowledgement of a fault in the highest manner graceful, it is lucky, when the circumstances of the offender place him above any ill consequences from the resentment of the person offended. A dauphin of France, upon a review of the army, and a command of the king to alter the posture of it by a march of one of the wings, gave an improper order to an officer at the head of a brigade, who told his highness, he presumed he had not received the last orders which were to move the contrary way. The prince, instead of taking the admonition, which was delivered in a manner that accounted for his error with safety to his understanding, shaked a cane at the officer; and with the return of opprobrious language persisted in his own orders. The whole matter came necessarily before the king, who

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commanded his son, on foot, to lay his right hand on the gentleman's stirrup as he sat on horseback in sight of the whole army, and ask his pardon. When the prince touched his stirrup, and was going to speak, the officer, with an incredible agility, threw himself on the earth, and kiss. ed his feet.

The body is very little concerned in the pleasure or sufferings of souls truly great, and the reparation, when an honour was designed this soldier, appeared as much too great to be borne by his gratitude as the injury was intolerable to his resentment.

When we turn our thoughts from these extraordinary occurrences into common life, we see an ingenuous kind of behaviour not only make up for faults committed, but in a manner expiate them in the very commission. Thus many things wherein a man has pressed too far, he implicitly excuses by owning, This is a trespass: you'll pardon my confidence; I am sensible I have no pretensions to this favour,' and the like. But commend me to those gay fellows about town who are directly impudent, and make up for it no otherwise than by calling themselves such, and exulting in it. But this sort of carriage, which prompts a man against rules to uge what he has a mind to, is pardonable only when you sue for another. When you are confident in preference of yourself to others of equal merit, every man that loves virtue and modesty ought, in defence of those qualities to oppose you: but without considering the morality of the thing, let us at this time behold only the natural consequence of candour when we speak of ourselves.

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The Spectator writes often in an elegant, often in an argumentative, and often in a sublime style, with equal success; but how would it hurt the reputed author of that paper to own, that of the most beautiful pieces under his title, he is barely the publisher? There is nothing but what a man really performs, can be an honour to him; what he takes more than he ought in the eye of the world, he loses in the conviction of his own heart; and a man must lose his consciousness, that is, his very self, before he can rejoice in any falsehood without inward mortification.

Who has not seen a very criminal at the bar, when his counsel and friends have done all that they could for him in vain, prevail on the whole assembly to pity him, and his judge to recommend his case to the mercy of the throne, without offering any thing new in his defence, but that he, whom before we wished convicted, become so out of his own mouth, and took

upon himself all the shame and sorrow we were just before preparing for him? The great opposition to this kind of candour arises from the unjust idea people ordinarily have of what we call

' a high spirit. It is far from greatness of spirit to persist in the wrong in any thing, nor is it a diminution of greatness of spirit to have been in the wrong; perfection is not the attribute of man, therefore he is not degraded by the acknowledgement of an imperfection: but it is the work of little minds to imitate the fortitude of

great spirits on worthy occasions, by obstinacy in the wrong. This obstinacy prevails so far upon them, that they make it extend to the defence of faults in their very servants. It would swell this

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per to too great a length, should I insert all the quarrels and debates which are now on foot in this town; where one party, and in some cases both, are sensible of being on the faulty side, and have not spirit enough to acknowledge it. Among the ladies the case is very common, for there are very few of them who know, that it is to maintain a true and high spirit, to thow away from it all which itself disapproves, and to scorn so pitiful a shame, as that which disables the heart from acquiring a liberality of affections and sentiments. The candid mind, by acknowledging and discarding its faults, has reason and truth for the foundation of all its passions and desires, and consequently is happy and simple; the disingenuous spirit, by indulgence of one unacknowledged error, is entangled with an after-life of guilt, sorrow, and perplexity.

T.

STEELE.

No. 383. TUESDAY, MAY 20

Criminibus debent hortos.

Juv. SAT.

A beauteous garden, but by vice maintained.

As I was sitting in my chamber, and thinking on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and

upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whether the philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I imme

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diately recollected that it was my good friend, Sir Roger's voice, and that I had promised to go with him on the water to Spring-Garden, in case it proved a good evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me, that if I was speculating he would stay below till I had done.

Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating, gossip, engaged in a conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy on the head, and bidding him be a good child and mind his book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple stairs, but we were surrounded with a crowd of water, men, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it,

You must know, says Sir Roger, I never make use of any body to row me that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.'

My old friend, after having seated himself and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of

for Vauxhall. Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg; and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many par

our way