is so excessive as to deprive people of the
proper use of speech and motion, or which, as Hamlet says, makes them
lisp and amble, and nick-name God's creatures.

THE countenance and manners of some very fashionable persons may be
compared to the inscriptions on their monuments, which speak nothing but
good of what is within; but he who knows any thing of the world, or of
the human heart, will no more trust to the courtesy, than he will depend
on the epitaph.

AMONG the various artifices of factitious meekness, one of the most
frequent and most plausible, is that of affecting to be always equally
delighted with all persons and all characters. The society of these
languid beings is without confidence, their friendship without
attachment, and their love without affection, or even preference. This
insipid mode of conduct may be safe, but I cannot think it has either
taste, sense, or principle in it.

THESE uniformly smiling and approving ladies, who have neither the noble
courage to reprehend vice, nor the generous warmth to bear their honest
testimony in the cause of virtue, conclude every one to be ill-natured
who has any penetration, and look upon a distinguishing judgment as want
of tenderness. But they should learn, that this discernment does not
always proceed from an uncharitable temper, but from that long
experience and thorough knowledge of the world, which lead those who
have it to scrutinize into the conduct and disposition of men, before
they trust entirely to those fair appearances, which sometimes veil the
most insidious purposes.

WE are perpetually mistaking the qualities and dispositions of our own
hearts. We elevate our failings into virtues, and qualify our vices into
weaknesses: and hence arise so many false judgments respecting
meekness. Self-ignorance is at the root of all this mischief. Many
ladies complain that, for their part, their spirit is so meek they can
bear nothing; whereas, if they spoke truth, they would say, their spirit
is so high and unbroken that they can bear nothing. Strange! to plead
their meekness as a reason why they cannot endure to be crossed, and
to produce their impatience of contradiction as a proof of their
gentleness!

MEEKNESS, like most other virtues, has certain limits, which it no
sooner exceeds than it becomes criminal. Servility of spirit is not
gentleness but weakness, and if allowed, under the specious appearances
it sometimes puts on, will lead to the most da