beating than any manifest mark of slight and contempt. Be, therefore, not only really, but seemingly and manifestly, attentive to whoever speaks to you.

NEVER INTERRUPT ANY SPEAKER.-It is considered as the height of ill manners to interrupt any person while speaking, by speaking yourself, or calling off the attention of the company to any new subject. This, however, every child knows.

ADOPT RATHER THAN GIVE THE SUBJECT.-Take rather than give the subject 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 of your own choosing.

CONCEAL YOUR LEARNING FROM THE COMPANY.Never display your learning, but on particular occasions. Reserve it for learned men, and let even these rather extort it from you than appear forward to display it. Hence you will be deemed modest, and reputed to possess more knowledge than you really have. Never seem wiser or more learned than your company. The man who affects to display his learning will be frequently questioned; and, if found superficial, will be ridiculed and despised; if otherwise, he will be deemed a pedant. Nothing can lessen real merit (which will always shew itself) in the opinion of the world but an ostentatious display of it by its possessor.

CONTRADICT WITH POLITENESS.-When you oppose or contradict any person's assertion or opinion, let your manner, your air, your terms, and your tone of voice, be soft and gentle; and that easy and naturally, not affectedly. Use palliatives when you contradict; such as, I may be deceived, I am not sure, but I believe, I should rather think,' &c. Finish any argument or dispute with some little good-humoured pleasantry, to shew that you are neither hurt yourself nor meant to hurt your antagonist; for an argument, kept up a good while, often occasions a temporary alienation on each side.

AVOID ARGUMENT IF POSSIBLE.— -Avoid as much as

you can, in mixed companies, argumentative, polemical conversations; which certainly indispose, for a time, the contending parties towards each other; and, if the controversy grows warm and noisy, endeavour to put an end to it by some genteel levity or joke.

ALWAYS DEBATE WITH TEMPER.-Arguments should never be maintained with heat and clamour, though we believe or know ourselves to be in the right; we should give our opinions modestly and coolly; and, if that will not do, endeavour to change the conversation, by saying, 'We shall not be able to convince one another; nor is it necessary that we should; so let us talk of something else.'

LOCAL PROPRIETY TO BE OBSERVED.-Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in one company may be, and often is, highly improper in another.

JOKES, BON MOTS, &c.-The jokes, bon mots, the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will seem flat and tedious when related in another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant, of one company may give merit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and, fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either insipid, or it may be offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble: I will tell you an excellent thing; or, ‘I will tell you the best thing in the world.' This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed, makes the relator of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like a fool.

EGOTISM.-Upon all occasions avoid speaking of yourself, if it be possible. Some abruptly speak advantageously of themselves, without either pretence or provocation. This is downright impudence. Others ceed more artfully, as they imagine; forging ac

cusations against themselves, and complaining of calumnies which they never heard, in order to justify themselves and exhibit a catalogue of their many virtues; they acknowledge, indeed, it may appear odd that they should talk thus of themselves; it is what they have a great aversion to, and what they could not have done, if they had not been thus unjustly and scandalously abused.' This thin veil of modesty, drawn before vanity, is much too transparent to conceal it, even from those who have but a moderate share of penetration.

Others go to work more modestly and more slily still; they confess themselves guilty of all the cardinal virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses, and then acknowledging their misfortune in being made up of those weaknesses. They cannot see people labouring under misfortunes, without sympathizing with and endeavouring to help them. They cannot see their fellow-creatures in distress without relieving them; though, truly, their circumstances cannot very well afford it. They cannot avoid speaking the truth, though they acknowledge it to be sometimes imprudent. In short, they confess that, with all these weaknesses, they are not fit to live in the world, much less to prosper in it. But they are now too old to pursue a contrary conduct, and therefore they must rub on as well as they can.'

Though this may appear too ridiculous and outre even for the stage, yet it is frequently met with upon the common stage of the world. This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human nature that it descends even to the lowest objects; and we often see people fishing for praise where, admitting all they say to be true, no just praise is to be caught. One perhaps affirms that he has rode post a hundred miles in six hours: probably this is a falsehood: but, even supposing it to be true, what then? Why it must be admitted that he is a very good post-boy; that is all. Another asserts, perhaps not without a few oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting.

It would be charitable to believe such a man a liar; for, if we do not, we must certainly pronounce him a beast.

There are a thousand such follies and extravagances which vanity draws people into, and which always defeat their own purpose. The only method of avoiding these evils is never to speak of ourselves. But when, in a narrative, we are obliged to mention ourselves, we should take care not to drop a single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. Be our characters what they will, they will be known; and nobody will take them upon our own words. Nothing that we can say ourselves will varnish our defects, or add lustre to our perfections; but, on the contrary, it will often make the former more glaring, and the latter obscure. If we are silent upon our own merits, neither envy, indignation, nor ridicule will obstruct or allay the applause which we may really deserve. But, if we are our own panegyrists upon any occasion, however artfully dressed or disguised, every one will conspire against us, and we shall be disappointed of the very end we aim at.

BE NOT DARK NOR MYSTERIOUS.-Take care never to seem dark and mysterious; which is not only a very unamiable character, but a very suspicious one too: if you seem mysterious with others, they will be really so with you, and you will know nothing. The height of abilities is to have a frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with a prudent and reserved interior; to be upon your own guard, and yet, by a seeming natural openness, to put people off of theirs. The majority of every company will avail themselves of every indiscreet and unguarded expression of yours, if they can turn it to their own advantage.

LOOK PEOPLE IN THE FACE WHEN SPEAKING.

Always look people in the face when you speak to them; the not doing it is thought to imply conscious guilt besides that, you lose the advantage of observing, by their countenances, what impression your discourse makes upon them. In order to know people's

real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my ears; for they can say whatever they have a mind 1 should hear; but they can seldom help looking what they have no intention that I should know.

SCANDAL.-Private scandal should never be received nor retailed willingly ; for, though the defamation of others may, for the present, gratify the malignity or the pride of our hearts, yet cool resection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a disposition. In scandal, as in robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.

NEVER INDULGE GENERAL REFLECTIONS.-Never, in conversation, attack whole bodies of any kind; for you may thereby unnecessarily make yourself a great number of enemies. Among women, as among men, there are good as well as bad; and, it may be, full as many or more good than among men. This rule holds as to lawyers, soldiers, parsons, courtiers, citizens, &c. They are all men, subject to the same passions and sentiments, differing only in the manner, according to their several educations; and it would be as imprudent as unjust to attack any of them by the lump. Individuals forgive sometimes; but bodies and societies never do. Many young people think it very genteel and witty to abuse the clergy; in which they are extremely deceived; since, in my opinion, parsons are very like men, and neither the better nor the worse for wearing a black gown. All general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, threadbare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, and so have recourse to common-place. Judge of individuals from your own knowledge of them, and not from their sex, profession, or denomination.

MIMICRY.-Mimicry, which is the common and favourite amusement of little, low minds, is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest and most illiberal of all buffoonery. We should neither practise it nor applaud it in others. Besides that, the person mimicked is insulted; and, as I have often observed to you before, an insult is never forgiven.

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