casual concourse, where the pursuit of health and pleasure brings
people promiscuously together, public conveniency has dispensed
with this maxim; and custom there promotes an unreserved
conversation for the time, by indulging the privilege of dropping
afterwards every indifferent acquaintance, without breach of
civility or good manners.

Even in societies, which are established on principles the most
immoral, and the most destructive to the interests of the general
society, there are required certain rules, which a species of
false honour, as well as private interest, engages the members to
observe. Robbers and pirates, it has often been remarked, could
not maintain their pernicious confederacy, did they not establish
a pew distributive justice among themselves, and recall those
laws of equity, which they have violated with the rest of
mankind.

I hate a drinking companion, says the Greek proverb, who never
forgets. The follies of the last debauch should be buried in
eternal oblivion, in order to give full scope to the follies of
the next.

Among nations, where an immoral gallantry, if covered with a thin
veil of mystery, is, in some degree, authorized by custom, there
immediately arise a set of rules, calculated for the conveniency
of that attachment. The famous court or parliament of love in
Provence formerly decided all difficult cases of this nature.

In societies for play, there are laws required for the conduct of
the game; and these laws are different in each game. The