have already got beyond all possibility of Amendment by others Patterns. As long as we behold any City or Province, or Family, or Street of our Neighbours, exceed the worst of ours, I will not say the best in easiness of Life, or pleasantness or smoothness of Manners, we have no reason to arrogate too much to our selves; but we rather should conceive it to be a less disgrace to tread in their Footsteps, than to want their Perfections. As long as there remains any room for our most civil People to grow more Civil, the introduction of foreign Inventions is not only pardonable, but necessary; for such is the Nature of Civility, that as it increases, it still requires more Arts, though it contents itself with less Forms of living.
The fourth Mischief by which the Greatness of the English is suppress'd, is a want of Union of Interests and Affections. This is originally caus'd by a natural reservedness, to which our temper is inclin'd; but it has been heighten'd by our Civil Differences, and Religious Distractions. For the sweetening of such Dissentions, it is not best at first to meet and converse about affairs of state, or spiritual controversies. For those did first occasion our Animosities, and the more they are rubb'd, the rawer they will prove. But the most effectual remedy to be us'd, is, first to assemble about some calm and indifferent Things, especially Experiments. In them there can be no cause of mutual Exasperations: In them they may agree, or dissent without Faction or Fierceness; and so from enduring each others Company, they may rise to a bearing of each others Opinions; from thence to an exchange of good Offices; from thence to real Friendship: Till at last by such a gentle and easy Method, our several In-
