custom has, in our imagination, so strongly connected this character with this state of life, that we are very apt to despise any man, whose peculiar humour or situation, renders him incapable of acquiring it. We laugh at the grave and careful faces of a city guard, which so little resemble those of their pro|fession. They themselves seem often to be ashamed of the regularity of their own man|ners, and, not to be out of the fashion of their trade, are fond of affecting that levity, which is by no means natural to them. What|ever is the deportment which we have been accustomed to see in a respectable order of men, it comes to be so associated in our ima|gination with that order, that whenever we see the one, we lay our account that we are to meet with the other, and when disappoint|ed, miss something which we expected to find. We are embarassed, and put to a stand, and know not how to address ourselves to a character, which plainly affects to be of a different species from those with which we should have been disposed to class it.
The different situations of different ages and countries, are apt in the same manner, to give different characters to the generality of those who live in them, and their senti|ments
