mirth of a nocturnal revel,
concurred in ridiculing his friend, would consider, in a cooler hour,
that the same trick might be played against himself; or that even where
there is no sense of danger, the natural pride of human nature rises
against him, who, by general censures, lays claim to general
superiority.

I was convinced, by a total desertion, of the impropriety of my conduct;
every man avoided, and cautioned others to avoid me. Wherever I came, I
found silence and dejection, coldness and terrour. No one would venture
to speak, lest he should lay himself open to unfavourable
representations; the company, however numerous, dropped off at my
entrance upon various pretences; and, if I retired to avoid the shame of
being left, I heard confidence and mirth revive at my departure.

If those whom I had thus offended could have contented themselves with
repaying one insult for another, and kept up the war only by a
reciprocation of sarcasms, they might have perhaps vexed, but would
never have much hurt me; for no man heartily hates him at whom he can
laugh. But these wounds which they give me as they fly, are without
cure; this alarm which they spread by their solicitude to escape me,
excludes me from all friendship and from all pleasure. I am condemned to
pass a long interval of my life in solitude, as a man suspected of
infection is refused admission into cities; and must linger in
obscurity, till my conduct shall convince the world, that I may be
approached without hazard.

I am, &c.

DICACULUS.

No. 175. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1751.

_Rari quippe boni: numerus vix est totidem quot
Thebarum portae, vel divitis ostia Nili_. Juv. Sat. xiii. 26.

Good men are scarce; the just are thinly sown:
They thrive but ill, nor can they last when grown;
And should we count them, and our store compile,
Yet Thebes more gates could show, more mouths the Nile. CREECH.

None of the axioms of wisdom which recommend the ancient sages to
veneration, seem to have required less extent of knowledge or
perspicacity of penetration, than the remarks of Bias, that [Greek: oi
pleones kakoi], "the majority are wicked."

The depravity of mankind is so easily discoverable, that nothing but the
desert or the cell can exclude it from notice. The knowledge of crimes
intrudes uncalled and undesired. They whom their abstraction from common
occurrences hinders from seeing iniquity, will quickly have their
attention awakened by