But though we are frequently tempted to be guilty of the active lies of vanity, our temptations to its passive lies are more frequent still; nor can the sincere lovers of truth be too much on their guard against this constantly recurring danger. The following instances will explain what I mean by this observation.

If I assert that my motive for a particular action was virtuous, when I know that it was worldly and selfish, I am guilty of an active, or direct, lie. But I am equally guilty of falsehood, if, while I hear my actions or forbearances praised, and imputed to decidedly worthy motives, when I am concious that they sprung from unworthy or unimportant ones, I listen with silent complacency, and do not positively disclaim my right to commendation; only, in the one case I lie directly, in the other indirectly: the lie is active in the one, and passive in the other. And are we not all of us conscious of having sometimes accepted incense to our vanity, which we knew that we did not deserve?

Men have been known to boast of attention, and even of avowals of serious love from women, and women from men, which, in point of fact, they never received, and therein have been guilty of positive falsehood; but they whɔ, without any contradiction on their own part, allow their friends and flatterers to insinuate that they have been, or are, objects of love and admiration to those who never professed either, are as much guilty of deception as the utterers of the above-mentioned assertion. Still, it is certain, that many, who would shrink with moral disgust from committing the latter species of falsehood, are apt to remain silent, when their vanity is gratified, without any overt act of deceit on their part, and are contented to let the flattering belief remain uncontradicted. Yet the tur

pitude is, in my opinion, at least, nearly equal, if my definition of lying be correct; namely, the intention to deceive.

This disingenuous passiveness, this deceitful silence, belongs to that extensive and common species of falsehood withholding the truth.

But this tolerated sin, denominated white lying, is a sin

which I believe that some persons commit, not only with out being conscious that it is a sin, but, frequently, with a belief that, to do it readily, and without confusion, is often a merit, and always a proof of ability. Still more frequently, they do it unconsciously, perhaps, from the force of habit; and, like Monsieur Jourdain, "the Bourgeois gentil-homme," who found out that he had talked prose all his life without knowing it, these persons utter lie upon lie, without knowing that what they utter deserves to be considered as falsehood.

I am myself convinced, that a passive lie is equally as irreconcilable to moral principles as an active one; but I am well aware that most persons are of a different opinion. Yet, I would say to those who thus differ from me, if you allow yourselves to violate truth-that is, to deceive, for any purpose whatever-who can say where this sort of self-indulgence will submit to be bounded? Can you be sure that you will not, when strongly tempted, utter what is equally false, in order to benefit yourself at the expense of a fellow creature?

All mortals are, at times, accessible to temptation; but, when we are not exposed to it, we dwell with complacency on our means of resisting it, on our principles, and our tried and experienced self-denial: but, as the life-boat, and the safety-gun, which succeeded in all that they were made to do while the sea was calm, and the winds still, have beer known to fail when the vessel was tost on a tempestuous ocean; so those who may successfully oppose principle to temptation when the tempest of the passons is not awakened within their bosoms, may sometimes be overwelmed by its power when it meets them in all its awful energy and unexpected violence.

But in every warfare against human corruption, habitual resistance to little temptations is, next to prayer, the most efficacious aid. He who is to be trained for public exhibitions of feats of strength, is made to carry small weights at first, which are daily increased in heaviness, till, at last, he is almost unconsciously able to bear, with ease, the greatest weight possible to be borne by man.. In like manner, those who resist the daily temptation to tell what are ap

parently trivial and innocent les, will be better able to withstand allurements to serious and important deviations from truth, and be more fortified in the hour of more severe temptation against every species of dereliction from integrity.

The active lies of vanity are so numerous, but at the same time, are so like each other, that it were useless, as well as endless, to attempt to enumerate them. I shall therefore mention one of them only, before I proceed to my tale on the ACTIVE LIE OF VANITY, and that is the most common of all; namely, the violation of truth which persons indulge in relative to their age; an error so generally committed, especially by the unmarried of both sexes, that ⚫ few persons can expect to be believed when declaring their age at an advanced period of life. So common, and therefore so little disreputable, is this species of lie considered to be, that a sensible friend of mine said to me the other day, when I asked him the age of the lady whom he was going to marry," She tells me she is five-and-twenty; I therefore conclude that she is five-and-thirty." This was undoubtedly spoken in joke; still it was an evidence of the toleration generally granted on this point.

But though it is possible that my friend believed the lady to be a year or two older than she owned herself to be, and thought a deviation from truth on this subject was of no consequence, I am very sure that he would not have ventured to marry a woman whom he suspected of lying on any other occasion. This however is a lie which does not expose the utterer to severe animadversion, and for this reason probably, that all mankind are so averse to be thought old, that the wish to be considered younger than the truth warrants meet with complacent sympathy and indulgence, even when years are notoriously annihilated at the impulse of vanity.

I give the following story in illustration of the ACTIVE

LIE OF VANITY.

THE STAGE COACH.......

AMONGST those whom great successes in trade had raised. to considerable opulence in their native city, was a family. by the name of Burford; and the eldest brother, when he was the only surviving partner of that name in the firm, was not only able to indulge himself in the luxuries of a carriage, country-house, garden, hot-houses, and all the privileges which wealth bestows, but could also lay by mons ey enough to provide amply for his children..

His only daughter had been adopted, when very young, by her paternal grandmother, whose fortune was employed s in her son's trade, and who could well afford to take on t herself all the expences of Annabel's education. But it was with painful reluctance that Annabel's excellent mother consented to resign her child to another's care; nor could she be prevailed upon to do so, till Burford, who believed that his widowed parent, would sink under the loss of her husband, unless Annabel was permitted to reside with her, commanded her to yield her maternal rights in pity to this beloved sufferer. She could therefore presume to refuse no longer ;-but she yielded with a mental conflict only too prophetic of the mischief to which she expose her child's mind and character, by this enforced surrender of a mother's duties.

The grandmother was a thoughtless woman of this worl --the mother, a picus, reflecting being, continually prepar ing herself for the world to come. With the latter, Anna bel would have acquired principles with the former she could only learn accomplishments; and that weakly judging persons encouraged her in habits of mind and char: acter which would have filled both her father and mother.... with pain and apprehension.

Vanity was her ruling passion; and this her grandmo ther fostered by every means in her power. She gave her elegant dresses, and had her taught showy accoinplishments. She delighted to hear her speak of herself, and boast of the compliments paid her on her beauty and

her talents. She was even weak enough to admire the skilful falsehood with which she embellished every thing which she narrated: but this vicious propensity the old lady considered only as a proof of a lively fancy; and she congratulated herself on the consciousness how much more agreeable her fluent and inventive Annabel was, than the matter-of-fact girls with whom she associated. But while Annabel and her grandmother were on a visit at Burford's country-house, and while the parents were beholding with sorrow the conceit and flippancy of their only daughter, they were plunged at once into comparative poverty, by the ruin of some of Burford's correspondents abroad, and by the fraudulent conduct of a friend in whom he had trusted. In a few short weeks, therefore, the ruined grandmother and her adopted child, together with the parents and their boys, were forced to seek an asylum in the heart of Wales, and live on the slender marriage settlement of Burford's amiable wife. For her every one felt, as it was thought that she had always discouraged that expensive style of living which had exposed her husband to envy, and its concomitant detractions, amongst those whose increase in wealth had not kept pace with his own. He had also carried his ambition so far, that he had even aspired to represent his native city in parliament; and as he was a violent politician, some of the opposite party not only rejoiced in his downfall, but were ready to believe and to propagate that he had made a fraudulent bankruptcy in concert with his friend who had absconded, and that he had secured or conveyed away from his creditors money to a considerable amount. But the tale of calumny, which has no foundation in truth, cannot long retain its power to injure; and, in process of time, the feelings of the creditors in general were so completely changed towards Burford, that some of them who had been most decided against signing his certificate, were at length brought to confess that it was a matter for reconsidera tion. Therefore, when a distinguished friend of his fathers, who had been strongly prejudiced against him at first, repented of his unjust credulity, and, in order to make him amends, offered him a share in his own busi