James Wilson

“ Modesty is a mixture of gravity and sweetness, that stamps plety on the behaviour, and makes the divine transports of the soul sparkle in the very eyes. It reaches every part of the exterior, and guides our whole comportment abroad and at home, in our closet, and in conversation: it plants virtue upon the forehead, and embellishes the exterior, with an universal decorum
Gentlemen I cannot conclude the discourse better, than in the words of the author of the economy of human life. ”

“ Be pleased then, Gentlemen, to let this suffice for my excuse, and after I have taken a draught of Porter I shall proceed. 'Tis a hard thing for man to know when to speak as when to hold his tongue; and to give himself, in both cases, with modesty and prudence: But the difficulty will be where to begin: for they are effectually two works in one, some men are silent for want of assurance, and some again for want of sense; and there is one, unhappiness in the case too, that the worst speakers are commonly the longest, and men of vanity rather than men of business. ”

“ Modesty is the duty of a wife, as well as of a virgin: and it is no longer a virtue, than while it continues all of a piece, in thought, word, and deed: for loose words lead naturally to loose actions; and the very provocation to lewdness is within one degree of the thing itself.
Modesty heightens the charms of a woman, and in a more peculiar manner becomes the fair sex. ”

“ As a plain garmeat best adometh a beautiful woman, is a decent behaviour is the greatest ornament of wisdom.
The speech of a modest man giveth insture to truth, and the diffidence of his own words absolveth his error.
He relieth not on his own wisdom, he weigheth the counsels of a friend, and receive the benefit thereof.
He turneth away his ear from his own praise, and believeth it not, he is the last in discovering his own perfections.
Yet, as a veil addeth lustre to beauty, so are his virtues set off by the shade which his modesty casteth upon them. ”

“ Sensual love knows neither bars nor bounds We are all naturally impudent: only by custom, and fig leaves, we have been taught to disguise the matter, and look demurely. Gentlemen, this is what we call Modesty. ”

“ But when they espy a lady without reservedness, who is endued with many attractive qualities, and has nothing that awes, no works that guards her virtue, they are tempted to storm her constancy, and if she lends a patient ear to the enconiums of her wit and beauty, she stays to receive the attack, she is in danger of being at discreation. ”

“ I have undergone several vicissitudes of fortune, but that blind goddess hath hitherto brow beat and eluded my embraces.
I was once a Hussar in the army, and had then the vanity of expecting to arrive at the dignity of Captain, but those pleasing and arrogaut hopes soon evanished, and in place of bettering my fortune, I was reduced to the most abject circumstances, and forced to wander up and down like a vagabond, in quest of my former employment. ”

“ The extravagant heats and transports of lovers and voluptuaries take away all shame, and till that devil of an unbridled appetite be laid, there can be no thought of lodging Carnal-Love and Modesty under the same roof. ”

“ Gentlemen, I must beg your pardon, when call to mind that my text is modesty, and shall endeavour, in the course of this Oration, to make a few small digressions of this sort as possible.
The greatest of Orators are some times necessitated to exemplify things by their opposite qualities, every virtue is best pointed out by explaining its opposite vice; and every vice too, is best illustrated by recommending its opposite virtue. ”

“ He despiseth the judgment of others. He relieth on his own opinion and is confounded.
He is puffed up with the vanity of his imagination, his delight is to hear and speak of himself all the day long. ”

“ Jupiter forgetting Modesty in the composition of man, intimates to us, the difficulty of admitting it till flesh and blood are satiate; for there is hardly any place for counsel, till these beats are in some measure taken off. ”

“ Per countenance and air rather fright passion than excite it: they conjure down impure love, and raise respect and esteem. In fine, she is encompassed with modesty, that there is no making an approach, and of consequence no prospect of success, and this difficulty cools the most fiery lust, and discourages the most violent sensuality. ”

“ I purpose to entertain my audience with subjects both improving and interresting and in discoursing of these, I am not to put on the affected gloom of some Orators, as I hold it very unsuitable to my present undertaking; But on the contrary, if I find my spirits a key or so too low, I will in presence administer an exhilerating draught, which will tone Claudero like an organ; by causing the animal spirits mount and flow through my cranium, in the same way as heat does the fluid in a Thermometer. ”

“ The skill of managing this province aright, is, in truth, the master-piece of a sober mans life, for we are always either talking or saying nothing, in a constant succession of speech and silence by turns. ”

“ Man was made in such a hurry, according to the old fable, that Jupiter had forgot to put Modesty into the composition, among his other affections: and finding that there was no way of introducing it afterwards, man by man, he proposed the turning of it loose among the multitude Modesty took herself at first to be a little hardly dealt with, but in the end came over to agree to it, upon condition that carnal love might not be suffered to come into the same company ”

“ These Orators, Gentlemen, have a handsome annual salary, and do not in the least depend on the affluence or bounty of their audience, consequently may be less careful to entertain them properly. But the case is quite reverse with Claudero, who has his sole dependance on the benevolence of individuals; Therefore it may reasonably be expected, he will exert every faculty of his soul, in order to acquit himself to the universal satisfaction of those Gentlemen, who do him the honour to attend his Orations. ”

“ Gentlemen, This difficulty of keeping young and hot blond in order does mightily enforce the necessity of an early care for the training up of youth, and giving them a tincture, before it be too late, of those doctrines and principles, by which they are afterwards to govern the whole frame of their lives for in their tender years they are more susceptible of profitable and virtuous impressions, then afterwards, when they come to be solicited by the impulse of common and vulgar inclinations. ”

“ AS it is the present custom in this city with pregnant girls, to give the production of their illicit amours to half a dozen different fathers at least, in order to furnish kirk-treasures a scope of choice, who generally give a dicision in favour of him who has the heaviest purse: So I, in imitation of so laudible an example, once intended to dedicate my Brat, to a whole groupe of Patrons and to allow the Public to point out from amongst them, the person most deserving the intended honour. ”

“ And we read of a Roman senator degraded, barely for kissing his wife to the presence of his daughter.
'Tis to be regreted, that the same delicacy is not observed amongst the moderns: for there are many people now a-days in this part of the world, who, so soon as they are married, lay aside all decent reserve, and take a liberty to extend the privilege of their condition beyond the bounds of sobriety and good manners. ”