erely for the sake of preventing mistakes, and to
clear up every doubt of his identity.--If you are speaking of a lady,
for instance, they will perhaps embellish their inquiries, by asking if
you mean her, whose great grandfather was a bankrupt, though she has the
vanity to keep a chariot, while others who are much better born walk on
foot; or they will afterwards recollect, that you may possibly mean
her cousin, of the same name, whose mother was suspected of such or
such an indiscretion, though the daughter had the luck to make her
fortune by marrying, while her betters are overlooked.

TO _hint at a fault_, does more mischief than speaking out; for whatever
is left for the imagination to finish, will not fail to be overdone:
every hiatus will be more then filled up, and every pause more than
supplied. There is less malice, and less mischief too, in telling a
man's name than the initials of it; as a worthier person may be involved
in the most disgraceful suspicions by such a dangerous ambiguity.

IT is not uncommon for the envious, after having attempted to deface the
fairest character so industriously, that they are afraid you will begin
to detect their malice, to endeavour to remove your suspicions
effectually, by assuring you, that what they have just related is only
the popular opinion; they themselves can never believe things are so bad
as they are said to be; for their part, it is a rule with them always to
hope the best. It is their way never to believe or report ill of any
one. They will, however, mention the story in all companies, that they
may do their friend the service of protesting their disbelief of it.
More reputations are thus hinted away by false friends, than are openly
destroyed by public enemies. An _if_, or a _but_, or a mortified look,
or a languid defence, or an ambiguous shake of the head, or a hasty word
affectedly recalled, will demolish a character more effectually, than
the whole artillery of malice when openly levelled against it.

IT is not that envy never praises--No, that would be making a public
profession of itself, and advertising its own malignity; whereas the
greatest success of its efforts depends on the concealment of their end.
When envy intends to strike a stroke of Machiavelian policy, it
sometimes affects the language of the most exaggerated applause; though
it generally takes care, that the subject of its panegyric shall be a
very indifferent and common character, so that