For,  when  we  come  to  consider  the  effect  of  this

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AN    ESSAY    ON    CONVERSATION

behaviour  on  tlie  person  who  suffers  it,  we  may  per-
haps have  reason  to  conclude  that  murder  is  not  a
much  more  cruel  injury.  What  is  the  consequence
of  this  contempt  ?  or,  indeed,  what  is  the  design  of
it  but  to  expose  the  object  of  it  to  shame?  a  sensa-
tion as  uneasy  and  almost  intolerable  as  those  which
arise  from  the  severest  pains  inflicted  on  the  body ;
a  convulsion  of  the  mind  (if  I  may  so  call  it)  which
immediately  produces  symptoms  of  universal  disoider
in  the  whole  man ;  which  hath  sometimes  been  at-
tended with  death  itself,  and  to  which  death  hath,
by  great  multitudes,  been  with  much  alacrity  pre-
ferred. Now,  what  less  than  the  highest  degree  of
ill-nature  can  permit  a  man  to  pamper  his  own  van-
ity at  the  price  of  another's  shame  ?  Is  the  glutton,
who,  to  raise  the  flavour  of  his  dish,  puts  some  birds
or  beasts  to  exquisite  torment,  more  cruel  to  the
animal  than  this  our  proud  man  to  his  own  species?

This  character  then  is  a  composition  made  up  of
those  odious,  contemptible  qualities,  pride,  folly,  arro-
gance, insolence,  and  ill-nature.  I  shall  dismiss  it
with  some  general  observations,  which  will  place  it
in  so  ridiculous  a  light,  that  a  man  must  hereafter
be  possessed  of  a  very  considerable  portion  either  of
folly  or  impudence  to  assume  it.
