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Thirdly, all general reflections on countries, religions, and professions, which are always unjust. If these are ever tolerable, they are only from the persons who with some pleasantry ridicule their own country. It is very common among us to cast sarcasms on a neighbouring nation, to which we have no other reason to bear an antipathy than what is more usual than justifiable, because we have injured it; but sure such general satire is not founded on truth; for I have known gentlemen of that nation possessed with every good quality which is to be wished in a man or required in a friend. I remember a repartee made by a gentleman of this country, which, though it was full of the severest wit, the person to whom it was directed could not resent, as he so plainly deserved it. He had with great bitterness inveighed against this whole people; upon which one of them who was present very coolly answered, “I don’t know, sir, whether I have not more reason to be pleased with the compliment you pay my country than to be angry with what you say against it; since, by your abusing us all so heavily, you have plainly implied you are not of it.” This exposed the other to so much laughter, especially as he was not unexceptionable in his character, that I believe he was sufficiently punished for his ill-mannered satire.

Fourthly, blasphemy, and irreverent mention of religion. I will not here debate what compliment a man pays to his own understanding by the profession of infidelity; it is sufficient to my purpose that he runs the risque of giving the cruelest offence to persons of a different temper; for, if a loyalist would be greatly affronted by hearing any indecencies offered to the person of a temporal prince, how much more bitterly must a man who sincerely believes in such a being as the Almighty, feel any irreverence or insult shewn to His name, His honour, or His institution? And, notwithstanding the impious character of the present age, and especially of many among those whose more immediate business it is to lead men, as well by example as precept, into the ways of piety, there are still sufficient numbers left who pay so honest and sincere a reverence to religion, as may give us a reasonable expectation of finding one at least of this stamp in every large company.

A fifth particular to be avoided is indecency. We are not only to forbear the repeating of such words as would give an immediate affront to a lady of reputation, but the raising of any loose ideas tending to the offence of that modesty which, if a young woman hath not something more than the affectation of, she is not worthy the regard even of a man of pleasure, provided he hath any delicacy in his constitution. How inconsistent with good-breeding it is to give pain and confusion to such, is sufficiently apparent; all double-entendres and obscene jests are therefore carefully to be avoided before them. But suppose no ladies present, nothing can be meaner, lower, and less productive of rational mirth, than this loose conversation. For my own part, I cannot conceive how the idea of jest or pleasantry came ever to be annexed to one of our highest and most serious pleasures. Nor can I help observing, to the discredit of such merriment, that it is commonly the last resource of impotent wit, the weak strainings of the lowest, silliest, and dullest fellows in the world.

Sixthly, you are to avoid knowingly mentioning anything which may revive in any person the remembrance of some past accident, or raise an uneasy reflection on a present misfortune or corporal blemish. To maintain this rule nicely, perhaps, requires great delicacy; but it is absolutely necessary to a well-bred man. I have observed numberless breaches of it; many, I believe, proceeding from negligence and inadvertency; yet I am afraid some may be too justly imputed to a malicious desire of triumphing in our own superior happiness and perfections; now, when it proceeds from this motive it is not easy to imagine anything more criminal.