rank; he pays all the respect that is due to it, without being disconcerted; and can converse as easily with a king as with any one of his subjects. This is the great advantage of being introduced young into good company, and of conversing with our superiors. A wellbred man will converse with his inferiors without insolence, and with his superiors with respect and with ease. Add to this, that a man of a gentlemanlike behaviour, though of inferior parts, is better received than a man of superior abilities, who is unacquainted with the world. Modesty and a polite easy assurance should be united.

COMPANY.

To keep good company, especially at our first setting out, is the way to receive good impressions. Good company is not what respective sets of company are pleased either to call or think themselves. It consists chiefly (though not wholly) of people of considerable birth, rank, and character; for people of neither birth nor rank are frequently and very justly admitted into it, if distinguished by any peculiar merit or eminency in any liberal art or science. So motley a thing is good company that many people, without birth, rank, or merit, intrude into it by their own forwardness, and others get into it by the protection of some considerable person. In this fashionable good company, the best manners and the purest language are most unquestionably to be learned; for they establish and give the ton to both, which are called the language and manners of good company, neither of them being ascertained by any legal tribunal.

A company of people of the first quality cannot be called good company, in the common acceptation of the phrase, unless they are the fashionable and accredited company of the place; for people of the first quality can be as silly, as ill-bred, and as worthless, as people of the meanest degree: and a company consisting wholly of people of very low condition, whatever their merits or talents may be, can never be

called good company; and, therefore, should not be much frequented, though by no means despised.

A company wholly composed of learned men, though greatly to be respected, is not meant by the words good company: they cannot have the easy and polished. manners of the world, as they do not live in it. If we can bear our parts well in such a company, it will be proper to be in it sometimes, and we shall be more esteemed in other companies for having a place in that.

A company consisting wholly of professed wits and poets is very inviting to young men, who are pleased with it if they have wit themselves; and, if they have none, are foolishly proud of being one of it. But such companies should be frequented with moderation and judgment. A wit is a very unpopular denomination, as it carries terror along with it; and people are as much afraid of a wit in company as a woman is of a gun, which she supposes may go off of itself, and do her a mischief. Their acquaintance, however, is worth seeking, and their company worth frequenting; but not exclusively of others, nor to such a degree as to be considered only as one of that particular set.

Above all things, endeavour to keep company with people above you; for there you rise, as much as you sink with people below you. When I say company above you, I do not mean with regard to their birth, but with regard to their merit and the light in which the world considers them.

There are two sorts of good company: one which is called the beau monde, and consists of those people who have the lead in courts and in the gay part of life; the other consists of those who are distinguished by some peculiar merit, or who excel in some particular or valuable art or science.

Be equally careful to avoid that low company which, in every sense of the word, is low indeed; low in rank, low in parts, low in manners, and low in merit. Vanity, that source of many of our follies and of some of our crimes, has sunk many a man into company in

every light infinitely below him, for the sake of being the first man in it. There he dictates, is applauded and admired; but he soon disgraces himself, and disqualifies himself for any better company.

Having thus pointed out what company you should avoid, and what company you should associate with, I shall next lay down a few

CAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN ADOPTING THE

MANNERS OF A COMPANY.

WHEN a young man, new in the world, first gets into company, he determines to conform to and imitate it. But he too often mistakes the object of his imitation. He has frequently heard the absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices. He there observes some people who shine, and who in general are admired and esteemed, and perceives that these people are rakes, drunkards, or gamesters; he therefore adopts their vices, mistaking their defects for their perfections, and imagining that they owe their fashion and their lustre to these genteel vices. But it is exactly the reverse; for these people have acquired their reputation by their parts, their learning, their good breeding, and other real accomplishments; and are only blemished and lowered in the opinions of all reasonable people by these general and fashionable vices. It is therefore plain that, in these mixed characters, the good part only makes people forgive, but not approve, the bad.

If a man should, unfortunately, have any vices, be ought, at least, to be content with his own, and not adopt other people's. The adoption of vice has ruined ten times more young men, than natural inclinations.

Let us imitate the real perfections of the good company into which we may get; copy their politeness, their carriage, their address, and the easy and wellbred turn of their conversation; but we should remember that, let them shine ever so bright, their vices, if they have any, are so many blemishes, which we should no more endeavour to imitate than we would make artificial warts upon our faces, because some very

handsome man had the misfortune to have a natural one upon his We should, on the contrary, think how much handsomer he would have been without it.

Having thus given you instructions for making you well received in good company, I proceed next to lay before you, what you will find of equal use and importance in your commerce with the world, some directions, or

RULES FOR CONVERSATION. TALKING.-When you are in company, talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire, your hearers. Take, rather than give, the tone of the company you are in. If you have parts you will shew them more or less upon every subject; and if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than any of your own choosing.

LEARN THE CHARACTERS OF THE COMPANY BEFORE YOU TALK MUCH.-Inform yourself of the characters and situations of the company, before you give way to what your imagination may prompt you to say. There are, in all companies, more wrong heads than right ones, and many more who deserve than who like censure. Should you therefore expatiate in the praise of some virtue, which some in company notoriously want; or declaim against any vice, which others are notoriously infected with; your reflections, however general and unapplied, will, by being applicable, be thought personal, and levelled at those people. This consideration points out to you sufficiently, not to be suspicious and captious yourself, nor to suppose that things, because they may, are therefore meant at you. The manners of well-bred people secure one from those indirect and mean attacks; but if by chance they are indulged in, it is much better not to seem to understand, than to reply to them.

TELLING STORIES, AND DIGRESSIONS.-Tell stories very seldom, and absolutely never but where they are very apt and very short. Omit every circumstance

that is not material, and beware of digressions. To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.

SEIZING PEOPLE BY THE BUTTON.-Never hold any body by the button, or the hand, in order to be heard out; for, if people are not willing to hear you, you had much better hold your tongue than them.

LONG TALKERS AND WHISPERERS.-Long talkers generally single out some unfortunate man in company to whisper, or at least in a half voice to convey a continuity of words to. This is excessively ill-bred, and, in some degree, a fraud; conversation stock being a joint and common property. But, if one of these unmerciful talkers lays hold of you, hear him with patience (and at least seeming attention), if he is worth obliging; for nothing will oblige him more than a patient hearing, as nothing would hurt him more than either to leave him in the midst of his discourse, or to discover your impatience under your affliction.

INATTENTION TO PERSONS SPEAKING.-There is nothing so shocking, nor so little forgiving, as a seeming inattention to the person who is speaking to you; and I have known many a man knocked down for a much slighter provocation than that inattention which I mean, I have seen many people who, while you are speaking to them, instead of looking at and attending to you, fix their eyes upon the ceiling or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill-bred; it is an explicit declaration on your part that every the most trifling object deserves your attention more than all that can be said by the person who is speaking to you. Judge of the sentiments of hatred and resentment, which such treatment must excite in every breast where any degree of self-love dwells. I repeat it again and again, that a sort of vanity and self-love is inseparable from human nature, whatever may be its rank or condition; even your footman will sooner forget and forgive a