but consent that the Heroick Daughter appeared
in the Rehearsal a moving Entertainment wrought out of a great and
exemplary Virtue.

The Advantages of Action, Show, and Dress on these Occasions are
allowable, because the Merit consists in being capable of imposing upon
us to our Advantage and Entertainment. All that I was going to say about
the Honesty of an Author in the Sale of his Ware, was that he ought to
own all that he had borrowed from others, and lay in a clear light all
that he gives his Spectators for their Money, with an Account of the
first Manufacturers. But I intended to give the Lecture of this Day upon
the common and prostituted Behaviour of Traders in ordinary Commerce.
The Philosopher made it a Rule of Trade, that your Profit ought to be
the common Profit; and it is unjust to make any Step towards Gain,
wherein the Gain of even those to whom you sell is not also consulted. A
Man may deceive himself if he thinks fit, but he is no better than a
Cheat who sells any thing without telling the Exceptions against it, as
well as what is to be said to its Advantage. The scandalous abuse of
Language and hardening of Conscience, which may be observed every Day in
going from one Place to another, is what makes a whole City to an
unprejudiced Eye a Den of Thieves. It was no small pleasure to me for
this reason to remark, as I passed by _Cornhill_, that the Shop of that
worthy, honest, tho' lately unfortunate, Citizen, Mr. _John Moreton_,
[2] so well known in the Linnen Trade, is fitting up a-new. Since a Man
has been in a distressed Condition, it ought to be a great Satisfaction
to have passed thro' it in such a Manner as not to have lost the
Friendship of those who suffered with him, but to receive an honourable
Acknowledgment of his Honesty from those very Persons to whom the Law
had consigned his Estate.

The Misfortune of this Citizen is like to prove of a very general
Advantage to those who shall deal with him hereafter: For the Stock with
which he now sets up being the Loan of his Friends, he cannot expose
that to the Hazard of giving Credit, but enters into a Ready-Money
Trade, by which Means he will both buy and sell the best and cheapest.
He imposes upon himself a Rule of affixing the Value of each Piece he
sells to the Piece it self; so that the most ignorant Servant or Child
will be as good a Buyer at his Shop as the most skilful in the Trade.
For all which, you have all his Hopes and Fortune for your