Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/253

Taking this for granted (as I think it cannot be disputed), it is astonishing to me, that anybody, who has good-sense and good-nature (and I believe you have both), can essentially fail in good-breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances; and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good-manners are, to particular societies, what good-morals are to society in general—their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good-morals, or at least to prevent the ill-effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good-manners, and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. The immoral man, who invades another's property, is justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who, by his ill-manners, invades and disturbs the quiet comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly banished from society. Mutual complaisances, attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilized people, as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects; whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages