truth, only combinations and conspiracies against good morals and good manners. [May 15, 1749.]
Vices should be Original.—If people had no
vices but their own, few would have so many as
they have. For my own part, I would sooner wear
other people's clothes than their vices; and they
would sit upon me just as well. I hope you will
have none; but, if ever you have, I beg, at least,
they may be all your own. Vices of adoption are,
of all others, the most disgraceful and unpardonable.
There are degrees in vices, as well as in
virtues; and I must do my countrymen the justice to
say, they generally take their vices in the lowest
degree. Their gallantry is the infamous mean
debauchery of stews, justly attended and rewarded
by the loss of their health as well as their character.
Their pleasures of the table end in beastly drunkenness,
low riot, broken windows, and very often (as
they well deserve) broken bones. They game for
the sake of the vice, not of the amusement; and
therefore carry it to excess; undo, or are undone
by, their companions. By such conduct, and in
such company abroad, they come home the unimproved,
illiberal, and ungentlemanlike creatures that
one daily sees them; that is, in the park, and in the
streets, for one never meets them in good company;
