r Saviour, It
is more blessed to give than to receive. So that a man can scarcely be
a true Epicurean without practising some of the maxims of Christianity.)
for there is nothing which produces so humane and genuine a sort of
pleasure as that of doing good. He who gave the names to the three
Graces was intelligent, for they all mean delectation and joy, (Aglaia,
Euphrosyne, and Thalia.) and these feelings surely are far greater and
purer in the giver. This is so evidently true, that we all receive good
turns blushing and with some confusion, but we are always gay and well
pleased when we are conferring one.

If then it is so pleasant to do good to a few, how are their hearts
dilated with joy who are benefactors to whole cities, provinces, and
kingdoms? And such benefactors are they who instil good principles into
those upon whom so many millions do depend. On the other hand, those
who debauch the minds of great men--as sycophants, false informers, and
flatterers worse than both, manifestly do--are the centre of all the
curses of a nation, as men not only infuse deadly poison into the
cistern of a private house, but into the public springs of which so many
thousands are to drink. The people therefore laughed at the parasites
of Callias, whom, as Eupolis says, neither with fire nor brass nor steel
could prevent from supping with him; but as for the favorites of those
execrable tyrants Apollodorus, Phalaris, and Dionysius, they racked
them, they flayed them alive, they roasted them at slow fires, looked on
them as the very pests of society and disgraces of human nature; for to
debauch a simple person is indeed an ill thing, but to corrupt a prince
is an infinite mischief. In like manner, he who instructs an ordinary
man makes him to pass his life decently and with comfort; but he
who instructs a prince, by correcting his errors and clearing his
understanding, is a philosopher for the public, by rectifying the very
mould and model by which whole nations are formed and regulated. It is
the custom of all nations to pay a peculiar honor and deference to their
priests; and the reason of it is, because they do not only pray for good
things for themselves, their own families and friends, but for whole
communities, for the whole state of mankind. Yet we are not so fond as
to think that the priests make the gods to be givers of good things,
or inspire a vein of beneficence into them; but they only make their
supplications to a bein