panies it. It is a Letter of Pliny's[1] which I
shall here translate, because the Action will best appear in its first
Dress of Thought, without any foreign or ambitious Ornaments.

PLINY to QUINTILIAN.

Tho I am fully acquainted with the Contentment and just Moderation of
your Mind, and the Conformity the Education you have given your
Daughter bears to your own Character; yet since she is suddenly to be
married to a Person of Distinction, whose Figure in the World makes it
necessary for her to be at a more than ordinary Expence in Cloaths and
Equipage suitable to her Husbands Quality; by which, tho her
intrinsick Worth be not augmented, yet will it receive both Ornament
and Lustre: And knowing your Estate to be as moderate as the Riches of
your Mind are abundant, I must challenge to my self some part of the
Burthen; and as a Parent of your Child. I present her with Twelve
hundred and fifty Crowns towards these Expences; which Sum had been
much larger, had I not feared the Smallness of it would be the
greatest Inducement with you to accept of it. Farewell.

Thus should a Benefaction be done with a good Grace, and shine in the
strongest Point of Light; it should not only answer all the Hopes and
Exigencies of the Receiver, but even out-run his Wishes: Tis this happy
manner of Behaviour which adds new Charms to it, and softens those Gifts
of Art and Nature, which otherwise would be rather distasteful than
agreeable. Without it, Valour would degenerate into Brutality, Learning
into Pedantry, and the genteelest Demeanour into Affectation. Even
Religion its self, unless Decency be the Handmaid which waits upon her,
is apt to make People appear guilty of Sourness and ill Humour: But this
shews Virtue in her first original Form, adds a Comeliness to Religion,
and gives its Professors the justest Title to the Beauty of Holiness. A
Man fully instructed in this Art, may assume a thousand Shapes, and
please in all: He may do a thousand Actions shall become none other but
himself; not that the Things themselves are different, but the Manner of
doing them.

If you examine each Feature by its self, Aglaura and Callidea are
equally handsome; but take them in the Whole, and you cannot suffer the
Comparison: Tho one is full of numberless nameless Graces, the other of
as many nameless Faults.

The Comeliness of Person, and Decency of Behaviour, add infinite Weight
to what is pronounced by any one. Tis t