and sacred purity on every occasion, great or small; but a constant display also of the most disinterested generosi ty and public spirit, to give such a character even fair play, before the world. People must be satisfied not only that such an one will not abuse his power to their injury and sacrifice their interests to his own; but that the strong & native tendency of his character is to disregard his own interest entirely when drawn into collision with their's; before they will forgive him his superiority and trust themselves in his hands. To such a character, any appearance or suspicion of coldness, or indifference towards the public good, and much more any appearance or suspicion of uncommon devotion to self, however fallacious such appearance or suspicion may be, is political death, without the hope of resurrection. Such a character must loose sight of self, altogether compared with the public, or the public will be very apt to lose sight of him, or, seeing, not to trust him. As to Sidney, knowing him as I do, I know that those appearances of which I have spoken are entirely fallacious, that his laxity in conversation is only sportiveness; that his attention to his own interests does not pass the bounds of ordinary prudence; that on a proper occasion, no man is more charitable, generous, or munificent; none more alive to the misfortunes and even solicitudes of a virtuous sufferer, that his apparent coldness is the effect only of mental abstraction and of judicious caution and selection; and in part, of that strong & exhausting flame with which his friendship burns for those whom he grapples to his heart. But the world at large can never have that intimate knowledge of him that I have; and, therefore, although I know that he looks upon imankind with an eye of benevolence, and upon his country with the spirit of a patriot, and although in addition to this, he is certainly capable of any and every thing that demands fidelity, zeal, energy, industry, the most unrelaxing, and talents the most transcendant, yet, much I fear that his country will never know him well enough to do him justice, or to profit herself, of his powers. Pumber XXV. Condida perpetuo reside, Concordia, lecto Mart. Epigr. XII. Lib. IV. Fair Concord ever on their bed attend, THE following Communications are from my country friend and correspondent, John Truename, re-touched, he tells me, by his good wife; in whose behalf, I offer conjointly, the prayer of my motto, which I have borrowed, for their sakes, from Martial. The reader will remember the pathetic story which this good man told us of the death of his father at the siege of York. I do not know how it is: but there is something in his simple, natural, old times talk, that takes a stronger hold of me, than ail the flowers of modern rhetoric. The subject of his present letter is very well chosen, and set out in a manner which will be much more pleasing to the great mass of my readers than any that I could adopt. I beg Mr. Truename to continue his correspondence with me; he will render thereby useful service to his country and do honor to his own head and heart. TO DOCTOR ROBERT CECIL. Dear, Dear, Mr. Old Bachelor, You have brought me into one of the very worst predicaments that ever need to be. How came you to publish that poor letter of mine, with so many words spelt wrong, and so many improper expressions in it, that I was afraid you would never make it out?And I fear, too, if you publish many more such letters, all your readers will quit The Old Bachelor. As for the spelling, I would have had that more correct, but my boys had carried our Entick to the school-house & left it there; and as I did not wish any body to know of my writing to you, I did not shew the letter to my wife, who is a much better speller, and a better scholar in most things, than I am; and what is more, can keep a secret very well about any thing that concerns me. Ah! Old Mr. Bachelor, you can't imagine how strange I felt when I opened one of the Enquirers at the post-office, and saw a long piece in print with John Truename at the bottom of it. My heart beat and my hand shook so, that I am sure if the post-master had noticed me, he would have seen that something was the matter; but I doubled up the paper as quick as I could, and stuffed it into my pocket. As I rode along home, I read over my printed letter, and your remarks upon it; and it struck me that there was some things in my letter that would be very apt to betray me to my wife, if she should read it, and I had a great mind to throw the paper away into the woods; but I knew she was so fond of reading The Old Bachelor, that she would send all over the neighborhood to borrow the paper rather than miss a number. When I got home, I threw the papers carelessly on the table and walked out; for I had not the courage to be present when my wife should read my letter. After some time, I went in, and had scarcely taken my seat before Fanny said, "Why, here is one of the most curious letters in The Old Bachelor that I ever saw; and it's my belief, old man, that you wrote it." That I wrote it, old woman? "Yes," said she, "I am almost sure you did.". Poh! Fanny, said I, can you think that I would be sending letters to be published in the Newspapers, when I can hardly spell my own name? She gave me a keep look from her black eyes, and said, half smiling, “Old man, if you did write it, it is not worth while to deny it, for I will find you out." Indeed it was not worth while to deny it; for my looks told her I was guilty, as plain as words could have done. So I confessed all; and told her further, that I had another letter ready for you, and should have carried it to the Post Office that day, if I had not started from where I was at work in the plantation, and forgot to come by the house for it. "But, old man," said she, "why did you not shew me this letter before you sent it? I think I could have helped you to make the spelling and the language something better than it is." I told her, I knew that; but I knew also, that she would have opposed my sending any letter at all; and as I was determined on it, I thought the best way was, to say nothing at all to her about it. But I have often observed, Old Mr. Bachelor, that if ever I do any thing of importance, without consulting with Fanny about it, I am very apt to repent of it; for though she never finds fault if it turns out badly, she has my credit, and the welfare of our family so much at heart, that she is very apt to see what is for the best. I went and brought my other letter and gave it to her. When she had read it over, she said, "Well, realty I think there are some very just remarks in this letter; but I suspect Dr. Cecil will not like your story about the poor member of Assembly. It looks too much like turning our public men into ridicule; and you know he has complained already of many of his readers thinking themselves aimed at by things in The Old Bachelor." said I, I had no thought that my letters would be published; and if they are, no one need to take that story on himself; for the poor member moved to the Western Country many years ago, and was killed by the Indians; and he did not leave any family that I ever heard of. But, "Well, old man," said she, "as you have promised The Old Bachelor another letter, suppose I take this, and copy it off, and try what I can do at correcting some parts of it a little? Perhaps it may do for variety's sake, if The Old Bachelor should think proper to publish it." I gave my consent; and when she was done, she brought it to me, but said she did not like it much; for she had found a more difficult task of it than she expected; that it was like altering a garment to make it fit, that had been badly cut at first. When I had read it over, and observed the alteration she had made in it, I could not help thinking it was very much like my own appearance, when she has fixed me up in my Sunday clothes to go abroad. She will never rest till she has me as clean and neat as a new pin, though there may be here and there a darn or a patch on my clothes, and some parts fine and some coarse, and some in the fashion and some out. But I will keep you no longer from my mended letterThough, indeed, such as it is, it's as much Fanny's as mine; for it's a thing that has been made out between us. But I think, Old Mr. Bachelor, it's the last you shall be ever troubled with from Your friend, Dear Doctor Cecil, J. T. In my last letter I told you that I wished to have your opinion on some things which have been lately brought to my mind more seriously than common by reading some particular numbers of The Old Bachelor: and I thought at first that perhaps you would not know how to explain them to such people as I, unless you knew what sort of a person I am. But I dare say, Mr. Old Bachelor, you can tell pretty well by this time what sort of a man John Truename is; and if I were to go on in my tedious way with an account of my family after my father's death, and our removal from the low country up to the foot of the Blue Ridge, and my mother's death, and my own marriage, &c. all up to the present time, I fear you would get so tired of reading it, that you would not have the heart to write a single line in The Old Bachelor for the information of such dull-headed people as I am. But this puts me in mind of one of the very things that I wish to write to you about; for it is my opinion, Old Mr. Bachelor, that it is with us poor ignorant people, that you ought to begin. You find great fault with the young gentlemen who have time and opportunity to learn, for not studying harder than they do, and for not taking more pains to understand things well, that they may become great and useful men, and an ornament to their country. But it is ny opinion, and I have thought so for some time, that it is owing in a great measure to the common people being so ignorant as they are, that our gentlemen are not inore anxious to get learning and knowledge; for they see that they can have the direction of affairs without any great deal of knowledge, and this makes them careless about it. But if the common people had learning enough to understand things pretty well, and to judge of the abilities of those that wish to take the lead amongst them, ignorant men would be ashamed to be candidates for public offices, and thereby only expose themselves among their well informed neighbors and fellow-citizens. And in that case, the people would not encourage them; for I have. always observed that a mair who understands any parti cular business, will not employ a person to do it for him that knows nothing about it So that if the common people were better informed, we should not have so many lawyers, and doctors, and preachers, and lawmakers, without any learning, undertaking to do business that cannot be well done without it. And pride too, which we all have more or less, would prevent the people, in that case, from encouraging ignorant men to get out of their proper places. This puts me in mind of a story that I heard many years ago, soon after my mother moved up to the mountains to live. I was at Capt's. a worthy man who had been a true friend to his country through the war; and Mr. D. from one of the neighboring counties, and several other gentlemen were there. Among other things, they were talking of the great want of learning among our people generally, and of the necessity of something being done by the Assembly to encourage it. This brought it in the way for Mr. D. to mention how he had been distressed one at hearing a member from his County make a speechr |