THE POLYANTHOS. FOR OCTOBER, 1812. We shall never envy the honors which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if we can be numbered among the writers who have given ardor to virtue and confidence to truth. Dr. Johnson. FOR THE POLYANTHOS. HISTORICAL SKETCHES....No. I. THE annexed PLATE represents the meeting house which formerly stood at the corner of Federal and Berry streets, Boston. It was built in 1744, by a society of Scotch and Irish emigrants, and their descendants. Several concurring circumstances have rendered this edifice celebrated in the history of the capital of Massachusetts. The Rev. John Moorhead, an Irish Protestant, no less remarkable for the honest bluntness of his manners and conversation, than for his fervent and unaffected piety, was the first pastor of the congregation. To him succeeded the Rev. Jeremy Belknap, D. D. well known as a historian and biographer. It was in this house that the delegates of Massachusetts met in convention to deliberate on the Federal Constitution, and here finally adopted it, February 7, 1788. From this incident the street, which till then had been called Long Lane, received the more dignified ap pellation of Federal street. The building was taken down in March, 1809, and an elegant brick meeting house, in the gothic style of architecture, built on the spot the same year. VOL. I. 1 FOR THE POLYANTHOS. THE MORAL CENSOR. No. I. "ONE might have expected that this distance, like death, would have been protection against spite and envy; and indeed absence being a kind of death, ought alike to secure the name of the absent as of the dead because they are equally unable as such to defend themselves; but they that intend mischief, do not chuse to follow good rules to effect it." Mr. Penn's Letter to his Friends in London, Anno 1683. THE extract, which furnishes a motto for this paper, is admirably suited for a text to a discourse on the folly and criminality of slandering our fellow men. Every manly sentiment, every noble passion, every humane feeling, rises indignant against the calumniator of the defenceless, absent, or dead. But the defamer" does not use to follow good rules,” to effect his purpose, and the arrow levelled at another's reputation generally recoils and wounds his own. The squib bursts in his hands before he has thrown it at the mark, and he himself is burned with the fire that he had kindled to annoy his neighbor. The scandal of fools is weak and harmless, and while it evinces imbecility of mind and corruption of principle, excites no sensation but disgust-provokes no emotion but contempt. But when men of superior abilities prostitute them in the invention of false, or the circulation of evil reports, the peace not only of individuals but of the whole community is seriously endangered. There is no treasure so invaluable-no gem so preciousno possession so dear, as reputation. The ravages of war may cease, and misfortune become tired of persecuting ;wealth that has taken wings may repent of its flight and return;-corporeal ailments may yield to the influence of the healing art, and vigor with sanity be restored to the debilitated frame ;-but honor, once tarnished, is destroyed-once gone, is gone forever. Suspicions, doubts and jealousies follow the sincerely penitent through all the walks and pursuits of life, nor quit him until he repose in the grave. Man, who cannot forget, of consequence can never fully forgive; he may pity, but while he remembers he cannot grant a plenary pardon. What degree of punishment should be inflicted on him, who wantonly or maliciously disobeys the law which commands him "not to bear false witness against his neighbour?" Who sports with the credit of his companion, or unjustly asperses the moral character even of his enemy ? The thief is compelled to make three-fold restoration, and condemned to servitude until the demands of justice be satisfied, and the injured compensated. The robber and the ravisher, the incendiary and the murderer, expiate their iniquities with their lives. Unless such miscreants be exterminated, society remains unappeased :-Nature loaths, as she numbers them among her children, and the harmony of the political system seems deranged while they are suffered to breathe the common air, and are visible above the surface of the ground, The reputation of a foe should be equally sacred with that of a friend; for if no man be allowed to judge his own cause, and execute the sentence that his personal resentment might prompt him to pronounce against another, his right is still less to crush and destroy that, without which, existence is the heaviest burthen a wretch can bear. Laws are enacted for the punishment of slanderers. But will the verdict of a jury repair the mischief? Can any pecuniary consideration be commensurate to the damage sustained? Will a decree of court expunge the stigma affixed to a litigated name by the credulous or the malevolent? Or will the insulted and abused always patiently wait the tedious issue of judicial proceedings, though smarting under the keen lash of unmerited scandal? How often is the avenging weapon committed to the hands of chance, and a bullet commissioned to decide the controversy of right and wrong ? How frequently, (to complete the catastrophe) is the man whose fame has been blasted, and his means of subsistence annihilated with his credit, slain by the villain, who, after having achieved these objects, adds the death of him whom he had ruined, to the catalogue of his triumphs? Human insti tutions can make no adequate amends to a family thus bereaved of a head; to a disconsolate widow, or to shivering, famished and fatherless, orphans. To asperse the absent or the dead is base and cowardly. None will form a high idea of the courage of a soldier who strikes a woman, or a priest; and if he should prove recreant when opposed by equal force, no great astonishment would ensue. An attack upon any ungarded being is equally disgraceful, and he who threatens when his adversary is out of hearing, is apt to avoid him in proportion as the intermediate distance is diminished. In fact, a slanderer is commonly to be ranked with a boaster, among the most arrant poltroons, The ancient Greeks had a juridical institution for the trial of the characters of deceased citizens. The deeds they had performed, the public or private services they had rendered,their virtues and their vices, and the manner in which they filled every station in which they had been placed during life, were subjects of discussion: these were minutely related, and the different allegations supported by the testimony of witnesses. The solemn adjudication on the important issue, either gave the memory of the departed a substantial and durable fame, or consigned it to as lasting contumely and reproach. Hence, a similar mode of deciding the fate of men after death, became admitted into the system of heathen mythology; and Minos, who was one of the most famous of the Grecian judges on earth, is represented as being employed in the same official capacity in the lower regions. The more enlightened and candid moderns do not tolerate so awful a tribunal, and assume, as a guide for a better practice, the maxim, that we ought to be silent respecting the dead, or to speak in their praise. This maxim applies with equal propriety to the living, whether present or absent. It is sanctioned by prudence, benevolence, and wisdom. Defamation is always detestable, and is an exception to the general observation of Pope, respecting vice, that she loses |