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language goes under the title of good-nature. Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shews virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable. There is no conversation or society to be kept up in the world without Good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which we express by the word Good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimicry of Good-nature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance and easiness of temper reduced into an art. These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved when they are founded upon a real Good-nature; but without it are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which, when it is discovered, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety. Good-nature is generally born with us: Health, prosperity and kind treatment from the world are great cherishers of it where they find it; but nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow of itself.
