their laughter. The judge who orders a criminal to be fet in the pillory, dishonours him more than if he had condemned him to the fcaffold. The great prince, who, fome years ago, caned a general officer at the head of his army, difgraced him irrecoverably. The punishment would have been much less had he fhot him through the body. By the laws of honour, to ftrike with a cane difhonours, to ftrike with a fword does not, for an obvious reafon. Thofe flighter punishments, when inflicted on a gentleman, to whom difhonour is the greatest of all evils, come to be regarded among a humane and generous people, as the moft dreadful of any. With re

gard to perfons of that rank, therefore, they are univerfally laid afide, and the law, while it takes their life upon many occafions, respects their honour upon almost all. · To fcourge a perfon of quality, or to set him in the pillory, upon account of any crime whatever, is a brutality of which no European government, except that of Ruffia, is capable.

A brave man is not rendered contemptible by being brought to the scaffold; he is, by being fet in the pillory. His behaviour in the one fituation may gain him univerfal efteem and admiration. No behaviour in the other can render him agreeable. The sympathy of the fpectators fupports him in the one cafe, and faves him from that shame, that consciousness that his mifery is felt by himfelf only, which is of all fentiments the most unfup

unfupportable. There is no fympathy in the other; or, if there is any, it is, not with his pain, which is a trifle, but with his consciousness of the want of fympathy with which this pain is attended. It is with his fhame, not with his forrow. Those who pity him, blush and hang down their heads. for him. He droops in the fame manner, and feels himself irrecoverably degraded by the punishment, though not by the crime. The man, on the contrary, who dies with refolution, as he is naturally regarded with the erect aspect of esteem and approbation, so he wears himself the fame undaunted countenance; and, if the crime does not deprive him of the respect of others, the punishment never will. He has no fufpicion that his fituation is the object of contempt or derifion to any body, and he can, with propriety, affume the air, not only of perfect serenity, but of triumph and exultation.

"Great dangers, fays the Cardinal de "Retz, have their charms, because there is "fome glory to be got, even when we mifcarry. But moderate dangers have no

thing but what is horrible, because the ❝lofs of reputation always attends the want "of fuccefs." His maxim has the fame foundation with what we have been just now obferving with regard to punishments.

Human virtue is fuperior to pain, to poverty, to danger, and to death; nor does it even require its utmost efforts to despise them.

But

But to have its mifery exposed to infult and derifion, to be led in triumph, to be fet up for the hand of fcorn to point at, is a fituation in which its conftancy is much more apt. to fail. Compared with the contempt of mankind, all other evils are eafily fupported.

PART

Of MERIT and DE MERIT; or, of the Objects of REWARD and

PUNISHMENT.

Confifting of three SECTION S.

SECTION I.

Of the fenfe of merit and demerit.

T

INTRODUCTION.

HERE is another fet of qualities afcribed to the actions and conduct of mankind, diftinct from their propriety or impropriety, their decency or ungracefulness, and which are the objects of a diftinct species of approbation and difapprobation. These are merit and demerit, the qualities of deferving reward, and of deferving punishment.

It has already been obferved, that the fentiment or affection of the heart, from which any action proceeds, and upon which its whole virtue or vice depends, may be confidered under two different afpects, or in two different relations firft, in relation to the caufe or object which excites it; and, fecondly, in

relation

relation to the end which it proposes, or to the effect which it tends to produce: that upon the suitableness or unfuitablenefs, upon the proportion or difproportion, which the affection feems to bear to the cause or object which excites it, depends the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the confequent action; and that upon the beneficial or hurtful effects which the affection proposes or tends to produce, depends the merit or demerit, the good or ill defert of the action to which it gives occafion. Wherein confifts our fenfe of the propriety or impropriety of actions, has been explained in the former part of this discourse. We come now to confider, wherein confifts that of their good or ill defert.

CHA P. I.

That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deferve reward; and that, in the fame manner, whatever appears to be the proper object of refentment, appears to deferve punishment.

O

T%% To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which appears to be the proper and approved object of that fentiment, which moft immediately and directly prompts us to reward, or to do good to another. And in the fame manner, that action must appear to deferve punishment,

a