Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/134

 if this will not give him an adequate idea of it, let him fancy a vain man giving his own character, and a revengeful one giving that of his most inveterate enemy. This contrast, in these two men, and the eagerness with which they both espoused their favourite topicks, one of praising, and the other of blaming, would have been the highest diversion to all those men who make it their business to get together such companies, as, by opposing each other, afford them matter of laughter. But poor Mr. Simple looked on things in another light; he was seriously considering the motives from which they both acted: he could not help applauding Mr. Varnish; but then he was afraid lest he should be too credulous in his good opinion, as he had often been already; and in the end discover, that all this appearance of good-nature was not founded on any real merit, as most of the people they had talked of were strangers to him; and he was not of the opinion, that the more ignorant a man is of any subject, the more necessary it is to talk of it. He said very little: but when he came home in the evening, he asked Spatter, what could be the reason he so earnestly insisted on putting the worst construction on every man's actions: who replied, that he hated detractions as much as any man living, and was as willing to allow men the merit they really had; but he could not bear to see a fellow imposing himself as a good-natured man on the world, only because nature had given him none of that melancholy which physicians call by the name of black blood, which makes him, to please himself, look on every thing on the best side. "I cannot say," continued he, " that gentleman is ill-humoured; but I am confident he has none of those sensations which arise from good-nature; for if the best friend he had was in ever so deplorable a situation, I don't say he would do nothing to relieve