On RESENTMENT; 109 
honesty ; yet it is not bad advice which is given by the poet,, 
when neither reason nor experience fuggefts a better remedy:. 
<c Learn to dissemble wrongs , to smile at injuries , 
<c To laugh at crimes thou wants the power to pwiifh. 
“ That is the way to live in fuch a world as this.” 
Smiling at injuries, and laughing at crimes, indeed 
found prettier in poetry than in moral rules ; for the integrity of 
the heart feems to forbid both. This however may be obferved, 
that there are fome occahons in which it is not only moft fafe, 
but mod virtuous to dissemble wrongs. 
And why fhould we expofe ourfelves to danger, becaufe other, 
people happen to be foolifh or wicked ? Or why indulge a re- 
fentment, which corrodes the heart, and robs the foul of its 
tranquillity? Can the passions do us juftice ? Will not reason. 
do it much better ? Thofe may increafe the evil ; this will di- 
minifh it. And can refentment be indulged without fome dehre 
of revenge ? And. what is revenge ? 
<( Revenge is hut a frailty , incident 
1 ‘ To craz'd and fickly minds , the poor content 
“ Of little fouls , unable to fur mount 
“ An injury , too weak to bear affrGnt T 
Here again the word frailty fuited the poet for his jingle, 
or he would have called it wickedness-. The faviour of man- 
kind tells us “ his kingdom is not of this world.” So very dif- 
ferent was his rule of conduct from the common pra&ice of 
mankind, as the facred hiftory of his life informs us, that 
“ when he was reviled, he reviled not again !” Can we imitate 
a. 
2. 
