he passes his time at home, and with his own family. Wherein, then,
consists Vanity, which is so justly regarded as a fault or imperfection.
It seems to consist chiefly in such an intemperate display of our
advantages, honours, and accomplishments; in such an importunate and
open demand of praise and admiration, as is offensive to others, and
encroaches too far on their secret vanity and ambition. It is besides a
sure symptom of the want of true dignity and elevation of mind, which is
so great an ornament in any character. For why that impatient desire
of applause; as if you were not justly entitled to it, and might not
reasonably expect that it would for ever at tend you? Why so anxious to
inform us of the great company which you have kept; the obliging things
which were said to you; the honours, the distinctions which you met
with; as if these were not things of course, and what we could readily,
of ourselves, have imagined, without being told of them?

Decency, or a proper regard to age, sex, character, and station in the
world, may be ranked among the qualities which are immediately agreeable
to others, and which, by that means, acquire praise and approbation. An
effeminate behaviour in a man, a rough manner in a woman; these are ugly
because unsuitable to each character, and different from the qualities
which we expect in the sexes. It is as if a tragedy abounded in comic
beauties, or a comedy in tragic. The disproportions hurt the eye, and
convey a disagreeable sentiment to the spectators, the source of blame
and disapprobation. This is that INDECORUM, which is explained so much
at large by Cicero in his Offices.

Among the other virtues, we may also give Cleanliness a place; since
it naturally renders us agreeable to others, and is no inconsiderable
source of love and affection. No one will deny, that a negligence in
this particular is a fault; and as faults are nothing but smaller vices,
and this fault can have no other origin than the uneasy sensation which
it excites in others; we may, in this instance, seemingly so trivial,
clearly discover the origin of moral distinctions, about which the
learned have involved themselves in such mazes of perplexity and error.

But besides all the AGREEABLE qualities, the origin of whose beauty
we can, in some degree, explain and account for, there still remains
something mysterious and inexplicable, which conveys an immediate
satisfaction to the spectator, but how, or why,