sex of my acquaintance, whose characters deserve to be transmitted to posterity in writings which will long outlive mine. But I do not think that a reason why I should not give them their place in my diurnal as long as it will last. For the service, therefore, of my female readers, I shall single out some characters of maids, wives and widows, which deserve the imitation of the sex. She who shall lead this small illustrious number of heroines shall be the amiable Fidelia.

Before I enter upon the particular parts of her character, it is necessary to preface, that she is the only child of a decrepid father, whose life is bound. up in hers. This gentleman has used Fidelia from her cradle with all the tenderness imaginable, and has viewed her growing perfections with the partiality of a parent, that soon thought her accomplished above the children of all other men, but never thought she was come to the utmost improvement of which she herself was capable. This fondness has had very happy effects upon his own happiness; for she reads, she dances, she sings, uses her spinet and lute to the utmost perfection; and the lady's use of all these excellencies is to divert the old man in his easy chair, when he is out of the pangs of a chronical distemper. Fidelia is now in the twenty-third year of her age; but the application of many lovers, her vigorous time of life, her quick sense of all that is truly gallant and elegant in the enjoyment of a plentiful fortune, are not able to draw her from the side of her good old father. Certain it is, that there is no kind of affection so pure and angelic as that of a father to a daughter. beholds her both with and without regard to her sex. In love to our wives there is desire, to our sons there is ambition; but in that to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express. Her life is designed wholly domestic, and she is so ready

He

a friend and companion, that everything that passes about a man is accompanied with the idea of her presence. Her sex also is naturally so much exposed to hazard, both as to fortune and innocence, that there is perhaps a new cause of fondness arising from that consideration also. None but fathers can have a true sense of these sort of pleasures and sensations; but my familiarity with the father of Fidelia makes me let drop the words which I have heard him speak, and observe upon his tenderness toward her.

Fidelia, on her part, as I was going to say, as accomplished as she is, with all her beauty, wit, air, and mien, employs her whole time in care and attendance upon her father. How have I been charmed to see one of the most beauteous women the age has produced, on her knees, helping on an old man's slipper! Her filial regard to him is what she makes her diversion, her business, and her glory. When she was asked by a friend of her deceased mother, to admit of the courtship of her son, she answered that she had a great respect and gratitude to her for the overture in behalf of one so near to her, but that during her father's life she would admit into her heart no value for anything that should interfere with her endeavor to make his remains of life as happy and easy as could be expected in his circumstances. lady admonished her of the prime of life with a smile; which Fidelia answered with a frankness that always attends unfeigned virtue: "It is true, Madam, there are to be sure very great satisfactions to be expected in the commerce of a man of honor, whom one tenderly loves; but I find so much satisfaction in the reflection how much I mitigate a good man's pains, whose welfare depends upon my assiduity about him, that I willingly exclude the loose gratifications of pas

The

sion for the solid reflections of duty. I know not whether any man's wife would be allowed, and (what I still more fear) I know not whether I, a wife, should be willing to be as officious as I am at present about my parent." The happy father has her declaration that she will not marry during his life, and the pleasure of seeing that resolution not uneasy to her. Were one to paint filial affection in its utmost beauty, he could not have a more lively idea of it than in beholding Fidelia serving her father at his hours of rising, meals, and rest.

When the general crowd of female youth are consulting their glasses, preparing for balls, assemblies, or plays; for a young lady who could be regarded among the foremost in those places, either for her person, wit, fortune, or conversation, and yet contemn all these entertainments, to sweeten the heavy hours of a decrepid parent, is a resignation truly heroic. Fidelia performs the duty of a nurse with all the beauty of a bride; nor does she neglect her person, because of her attendance on him, when he is too ill to receive company, to whom she may make an appearance.

Fidelia, who gives him up her youth, does not think it any great sacrifice to add to it the spoiling of her dress. Her care and exactness in her habit convinces her father of the alacrity of her mind; and she has of all women the best foundation for affecting the praise of a seeming negligence. What adds to the entertainment of the good old man is, that Fidelia, where merit and fortune cannot be overlooked by epistolary lovers, reads over the accounts of her conquests, plays on her spinet the gayest airs (and, while she is doing so, you would think her formed only for gallantry) to intimate to him the pleasures she despises for his sake.

Those who think themselves the patterns of goodbreeding and gallantry would be astonished to hear that, in those intervals when the old gentleman is at ease, and can bear company, there are at his house, in the most regular order, assemblies of people of the highest merit; where there is conversation without mention of the faults of the absent, benevolence between men and women without passion, and the highest subjects of morality treated of as natural and accidental discourse; all of which is owing to the genius of Fidelia, who at once makes her father's way to another world easy, and herself capable of being an honor to his name in this.

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No. 458.]

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1712.

-Pudor malus

HOR.

False modesty.

I COULD not but smile at the account that was yesterday given me of a modest young gentleman, who, being invited to an entertainment, though he was not used to drink, had not the confidence to refuse his glass in his turn, when on a sudden he grew so flustered, that he took all the talk of the table into his own hands, abused every one of the company, and flung a bottle at the gentleman's head who treated him. This has given me occasion to reflect upon the ill effects of a vicious modesty, and to remember the saying of Brutus, as it is quoted by Plutarch, that "the person has had but an ill education, who has not been taught to deny anything." This false kind of modesty has, perhaps, betrayed both sexes into as many vices as the most abandoned im

pudence; and is the more inexcusable to reason, because it acts to gratify others rather than itself, and is punished with a kind of remorse, not only like other vicious habits when the crime is over, but even at the very time that it is committed.

Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing is more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it. True modesty is ashamed to do anything that is repugnant to the rules of right reason: false modesty is ashamed to do anything that is opposite to the humor of the company. True modesty avoids everything that is criminal, false modesty everything that is unfashionable. The latter is only a general undetermined instinct; the former is that instinct, limited and circumscribed by the rules of prudence and religion.

We may conclude that modesty to be false and vicious which engages a man to do anything that is ill or indiscreet, or which restrains him from doing anything that is of a contrary nature. How many men, in the common concerns of life, lend sums of money which they are not able to spare, are bound for persons whom they have but little friendship for, give recommendatory characters of men whom they are not acquainted with, bestow places on those whom they do not esteem, live in such a manner as they themselves do not approve, and all this merely because they have not the confidence to resist solicitation, importunity, or example!

Nor does this false modesty expose us only to such actions as are indiscreet, but very often to such as are highly criminal. When Xenophanes was called timorous because he would not venture his money in a game of dice: "I confess," said he, "that I am exceeding timorous, for I dare not do an ill thing." On the contrary, a man of vicious modesty complies