as myself, was wholly taken up in discoursing upon the last new play.

My lord Cromarty, after fourscore, went to his country house in Scotland, with a resolution to stay six years there and live thriftily, in order to save up money, that he might spend in London.

It is said of the horses in the vision, that "their power was in their mouths and in their tails." What is said of horses in the vision, in reality may be said of women.

Elephants are always drawn smaller than life, but a flea always larger.

When old folks tell us of many passages in their youth between them and their company, we are apt to think how much happier those times were than the present.

Why does the elder sister dance barefoot, when the younger is married before her? Is it not that she may appear shorter and consequently be thought younger than the bride?

No man will take counsel, but every man will take money therefore money is better than counsel.

I never yet knew a wag (as the term is,) who was not a dunce.

A person reading to me a dull poem of his own making, I prevailed on him to scratch out six lines together; in turning over the leaf, the ink being wet, it marked as many lines on the other side; whereof the poet complaining, I bid him be easy, "for it would be better if those were out too."

At Windsor I was observing to my lord Bolingbroke, "that the tower where the maids of honour lodged (who at that time were very handsome) was much frequented with crows." My lord said, "it was because they smelled carrion."

A TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS AND GOOD BREEDING."

GOOD manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse.

Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.

As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd things into common good manners.

One principal point of this art is, to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

For instance, to press either of the two former to eat or drink is a breach of manners; but a tradesman or a farmer must be thus treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade them that they are welcome.

Pride, ill-nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill-manners: without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or of what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.

I defy any one to assign an incident wherein reason will not direct us what to say or do in company, if we are not misled by pride or ill nature.

Therefore I insist that good sense is the principal foundation of good manners; but because the former is a gift which very few among mankind are possessed of, therefore all the civilized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing some rules upon common behaviour best suited to their general customs or fancies, as a kind of artificial good sense, to supply the defects of reason. Without which the gentlemanly part of dunces

a "The result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them."-LORD CHESTERFIELD.

would be perpetually at cuffs, as they seldom fail when they happen to be drunk, or engaged in squabbles about women or play. And, God be thanked, there hardly happens a duel in a year, which may not be imputed to one of these three motives. Upon which acccount, I should be exceedingly sorry to find the legislature make any new laws against the practice of duelling; because the methods are easy and many for a wise man to avoid a quarrel with honour, or engage in it with innocence. And I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own, where the law has not been able to find an expedient.

As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak understandings; so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were contrived. For these people have fallen into a needless and endless way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practise them, and insupportable to everybody else: insomuch that wise men are often more uneasy at the over-civility of these refiners than they could possibly be in the conversation of peasants or mechanics.

The impertinencies of this ceremonial behaviour are nowhere better seen than at those tables where the ladies preside, who value themselves upon account of their good breeding; where a man must reckon upon passing an hour without doing any one thing he has a mind to; unless he will be so hardy as to break through all the settled decorum of the family. She determines what he loves best, and how much he shall eat; and if the master of the house happens to be of the same disposition he proceeds in the same tyrannical manner to prescribe in the drinking part: at the same time you are under the necessity of answering a thousand apologies for your entertainment. And although a good deal of this humour is pretty well worn off among many people of the best fashion, yet too much of it still remains, especially in the country; where an honest gentleman assured me, that having been kept four days against his will at a friend's house, with all the circumstances of hiding his boots, locking up the stable, and other contrivances of the like nature, he could not remember, from the moment he came into the house to the moment he left it, any one thing wherein his inclination was not directly contradicted; as if the whole family had entered into a combination to torment him.

the many foolish and ridiculous accidents I have obthese unfortunate proselytes to ceremony.

But, beside all this, it would be endless to recount

served among

I have seen a duchess fairly knocked down, by the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb running to save her the trouble of opening a door. I remember, upon a birth-day at court, a great lady was rendered utterly disconsolate by a dish of sauce let fall by a page directly upon her head-dress and brocade, while she gave a sudden turn to her elbow upon some point of ceremony with the person who sat next to her. Monsieur Buys, the Dutch envoy, whose politics and manners were much of a size, brought a son with him, about thirteen years old, to a great table at court. The boy and his father, whatever they put on their plates, they first offered round in order, to every person in company; so that we could not get a minute's quiet during the whole dinner. At last their two plates happened to encounter, and with so much violence, that, being china, they broke in twenty pieces, and stained half the company with wet sweet-meats and cream.

There is a pedantry in manners, as in all arts and sciences; and sometimes in trades. Pedantry is pro- | perly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to. And if that kind of knowledge be a trifle

in itself, the pedantry is the greater. For which reason I look upon fiddlers, dancing-masters, heralds, masters of the ceremony, &c. to be greater pedants than Lipsius, or the elder Scaliger. With this kind of pedants, the court, while I knew it, was always plentifully stocked; I mean from the gentleman usher (at least) inclusive, downward to the gentleman porter: who are, generally speaking, the most insignificant race of people that this island can afford, and with the smallest tincture of good manners; which is the only trade they profess. For, being wholly illiterate, and conversing chiefly with each other, they reduce the whole system of breeding within the forms and circles of their several offices: and, as they are below the notice of ministers, they live and die in court under all revolutions, with great obsequiousness to those who are in any degree of credit or favour, and with rudeness and insolence to everybody else. Whence I have long concluded, that good manners are not a plant of the court growth: for if they were, those people, who have understandings directly of a level for such acquirements, who have served such long apprenticeships to nothing else, would certainly have picked them up. For, as to the great officers, who attend the prince's person or councils, or preside in his family, they are a transient body, who have no better a title to good manners than their neighbours, nor will probably have recourse to gentlemen ushers for instruction. So that I know little to be learned at court upon this head, except in the material circumstance of dress; wherein the authority of the maids of honour must indeed be allowed to be almost equal to that of a favourite actress.

I remember a passage my lord Bolingbroke told me ; that going to receive prince Eugene of Savoy at his landing, in order to conduct him immediately to the queen, the prince said he was much concerned that he could not see her majesty that night; for Monsieur Hoffman (who was then by) had assured his highness that he could not be admitted into her presence with a tied-up periwig; that his equipage was not arrived; and that he had endeavoured in vain to borrow a long one among all his valets and pages. My lord turned the matter into a jest, and brought the prince to her majesty; for which he was highly censured by the whole tribe of gentlemen ushers; among whom Monsieur Hoffman, an old dull resident of the emperor's, had picked up this material point of ceremony; and which I believe was the best lesson he had learned in fiveand-twenty years' residence.

I make a difference between good manners and good breeding; although, in order to vary my expression, I am sometimes forced to confound them. By the first, I only understand the art of remembering and applying certain settled forms of general behaviour. But good breeding is of a much larger extent; for, beside an uncommon degree of literature sufficient to qualify a gentleman for reading a play or a political pamphlet, it takes in a great compass of knowledge; no less than that of dancing, fighting, gaming, making the circle of Italy, riding the great horse, and speaking French; not to mention some other secondary or subaltern accomplishments, which are more easily acquired. So that the difference between good breeding and good manners lies in this, that the former cannot be attained to by the best understandings without study and labour; whereas a tolerable degree of reason will instruct us in every part of good manners, without other assistance.

I can think of nothing more useful upon this subject than to point out some particulars, wherein the very essentials of good manners are concerned, the neglect or perverting of which does very much disturb the good commerce of the world, by introducing a traffic of mutual uneasiness in most companies.

First, A necessary part of good manners is a punctual

observance of time at our own dwellings, or those of others, or at third places; whether upon matter of civility, business, or diversion; which rule, though it be a plain dictate of common reason, yet the greatest minister I ever knew was the greatest trespasser against it; by which all his business doubled upon him, and placed him in a continual arrear. Upon which I often used to rally him, as deficient in point of good manners. I have known more than one ambassador and secretary of state, with a very moderate portion of intellectuals, execute their offices with good success and applause, by the mere force of exactness and regularity. If you duly observe time for the service of another, it doubles the obligation; if upon your own account, it would be manifest folly, as well as ingratitude, to neglect it; if both are concerned, to make your equal or inferior attend on you to his own disadvantage is pride and injustice.

Ignorance of forms cannot properly be styled ill manners, because forms are subject to frequent changes; and consequently, being not founded upon reason, are beneath a wise man's regard. Besides, they vary in every country; and after a short period of time, very frequently in the same; so that a man who travels must needs be at first a stranger to them in every court through which he passes; and, perhaps, at his return, as much a stranger in his own; and after all, they are easier to be remembered or forgotten than faces or

names.

Indeed, among the many impertinencies that superficial young men bring with them from abroad, this bigotry of forms is one of the principal, and more predominant than the rest; who look upon them not only as if they were matters capable of admitting of choice, but even as points of importance; and are therefore zealous on all occasions to introduce and propagate the new forms and fashions they have brought back with them; so that, usually speaking, the worst bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.

HINTS ON GOOD MANNERS.

Good manners is the art of making every reasonable person in the company easy, and to be easy ourselves. What passes for good manners in the world generally produces quite contrary effects.

Many persons of both sexes, whom I have known, and who passed for well-bred in their own and the world's opinion, are the most troublesome in company to others and themselves.

Nothing is so great an instance of ill manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none : if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.

Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our

esteem.

Where the company meets, I am confident the few reasonable persons are every minute tempted to curse the man or woman among them who endeavours to be most distinguished for their good manners.

A man of sense would rather fast till night than dine at some tables, where the lady of the house is possessed with good manners; uneasiness, pressing to eat, teazing with civility; less practised in England than here.

Courts are the worst of all schools to teach good

manners.

A courtly bow, or gait, or dress, are no part of good manners; and therefore every man of good understanding is capable of being well-bred upon any occasion.

To speak in such a manner as may possibly offend any reasonable person in company, is the highest instance of ill manners. Good manners chiefly consist in action,

OF GOOD MANNERS AS TO CONVERSATION.

Men of wit and good understanding, as well as breeding, are sometimes deceived, and give offence by conceiving a better opinion of those with whom they converse than they ought to do. Thus I have often known the most innocent raillery, and even of that kind which was meant for praise, to be mistaken for abuse and reflection.

Of gibing, and how gibers ought to suffer.

Of arguers, perpetual contradictors, long talkers, those who are absent in company, interrupters, not listeners, loud laughers.

Of those men and women whose face is ever in a smile, talk ever with a smile, condole with a smile, &c. Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation; as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.

Good conversation is not to be expected in much company, because few listen, and there is continual interruption. But good or ill manners are discovered, let the company be ever so large.

Perpetual aiming at wit, a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character; it generally fails it is a sort of insult on the company, and a constraint upon the speaker.

For a man to talk in his own trade, or business, or faculty, is a great breach of good manners. Divines, physicians, lawyers, soldiers, particularly poets, are frequently guilty of this weakness. A poet conceives that the whole kingdom *

**

OF MEAN AND GREAT FIGURES MADE BY SEVERAL PERSONS.

OF THOSE WHO HAVE MADE GREAT FIGURES IN SOME PARTICULAR ACTION OR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THEIR LIVES.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT, after his victory, (at the Straits at Mount Taurus,) when he entered the tent, where the queen and the princesses of Persia fell at his feet.

Socrates, the whole last day of his life, and particularly from the time he took the poison until the moment he expired.

Cicero, when he was recalled from his banishment, the people, through every place he passed, meeting him with shouts of joy and congratulation, and all Rome coming out to receive him.

Regulus, when he went out of Rome attended by his friends to the gates, and returned to Carthage according to his word of honour, although he knew he must be put to a cruel death for advising the Romans to pursue their war with that commonwealth.

Scipio the elder, when he dismissed a beautiful captive lady presented to him after a great victory, turning his head aside to preserve his own virtue.

The same Scipio, when he and Hannibal met before the battle, if the fact be true.

Cincinnatus, when the messengers sent by the senate to make him dictator, found him at the plough. Epaminondas, when the Persian ambassador came to his house, and found him in the midst of poverty.

The earl of Strafford, the day that he made his own defence at his trial.

King Charles the Martyr, during his whole trial, and at his death.

The Black Prince, when he waited at supper on the king of France, whom he had conquered and taken prisoner the same day.

Virgil, when, at Rome, the whole audience rose up, out of veneration, as he entered the theatre.

Mahomet the Great, when he cut off his beloved mistress's head, on a stage erected for that purpose, to convince his soldiers, who taxed him for preferring his love to his glory.

Cromwell, when he quelled a mutiny in Hyde Park. Harry the Great of France, when he entered Paris, and sat at cards the same night with some great ladies, who were his mortal enemies.

Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, at his trial.

Cato of Utica, when he provided for the safety of his friends, and had determined to die.

Sir Thomas More, during his imprisonment, and at his execution.

Marius, when the soldier sent to kill him in the dungeon was struck with so much awe and veneration that his sword fell from his hand.

Douglas, when the ship he commanded was on fire, and he lay down to die in it, because it should not be said that one of his family ever quitted their post.

OF THOSE WHO HAVE MADE A MEAN CONTEMPTIBLE FIGURE IN SOME ACTION OR CIRCUMSTANCE OF THEIR LIVES.

Anthony, at Actium, when he fled after Cleopatra. Pompey, when he was killed on the sea-shore, in Egypt.

Nero and Vitellius, when they were put to death. Lepidus, when he was compelled to lay down his share of the triumvirate.

Cromwell, the day he refused the kingship out of fear. Perseus, king of Macedon, when he was led in triumph.

Richard II., of England, after he was deposed.

The late king of Poland, when the king of Sweden forced him to give up his kingdom; and when he took it again, upon the king of Sweden's defeat by the Muscovites.

King James II., of England, when the prince of Orange sent to him at midnight to leave London.

King William III., of England, when he sent to beg the house of commons to continue his Dutch guards, and was refused.

The late queen Anne of England, when she sent Whitworth to Muscovy on an embassy of humiliation, for an insult committed here on that prince's ambassador.

The lord chancellor Bacon, when he was convicted of bribery.

The late duke of Marlborough, when he was forced, after his own disgrace, to carry his duchess's gold key to the queen.

The old earl of Pembroke, when a Scotch lord gave him a lash with a whip at Newmarket, in presence of all the nobility, and he bore it with patience.

King Charles II., of England, when he entered into the second Dutch war; and in many other actions during his whole reign.

Philip II., of Spain, after the defeat of the Armada. The emperor Charles V., when he resigned his crown, and nobody would believe his reasons.

King Charles I., of England, when, in gallantry to his queen, he thought to surprise her with a present of a diamond buckle, which he pushed down her breast, and tore her flesh with the tongue; upon which she drew it out, and flung it on the ground.

Fairfax, the parliament general, at the time of king Charles's trial.

Julius Cæsar, when Anthony offered to put a diadem on his head, and the people shouted for joy to see him

decline it; which he never offered to do, until he saw their dislike in their countenances.

Coriolanus, when he withdrew his army from Rome at the entreaty of his mother.

Hannibal, at Antiochus's court.

Beau Fielding, at fifty years old, when, in a quarrel upon the stage, he was run into his breast, which he opened and showed to the ladies, that he might move their love and pity; but they all fell a-laughing.

The count de Bussy Rabutin, when he was recalled to court after twenty years' banishment into the country, and affected to make the same figure he did in his youth.

The earl of Sunderland, when he turned Papist, in the time of king James II., and underwent all the forms of a heretic converted.

Pope Clement VII., when he was taken prisoner at Rome, by the emperor Charles V.'s forces.

Queen Mary of Scotland, when she suffered Bothwell to ravish her, and pleaded that as an excuse for marrying him.

King John of England, when he gave up his kingdom to the pope, to be held as a fief to the see of Rome.

PUBLIC ABSURDITIES IN ENGLAND.

It is a common topic of satire, which you will hear not only from the mouths of ministers of state, but of every whiffler in office, that half a dozen obscure fellows, over a bottle of wine or a dish of coffee, shall presume to censure the actions of parliaments and councils, to form schemes of government, and new-model the commonwealth; and this is usually ridiculed as a pragmatical disposition to politics, in the very nature and genius of the people. It may possibly be true: and yet I am grossly deceived if any sober man, of very moderate talents, when he reflects upon the many ridiculous hurtful maxims, customs, and general rules of life which prevail in this kingdom, would not with great reason be tempted, according to the present turn of his humour, either to laugh, lament, or be angry; or, if he were sanguine enough, perhaps to dream of a remedy. It is the mistake of wise and good men, that they expect more reason and virtue from human nature than, taking it in the bulk, it is in any sort capable of. Whoever has been present at councils or assemblies of any sort, if he be a man of common prudence, cannot but have observed such results and opinions to have frequently passed a majority, as he would be ashamed to advance in private conversation. I say nothing of cruelty, oppression, injustice, and the like, because these are fairly to be accounted for in all assemblies, as best gratifying the passions and interest of leaders: which is a point of such high consideration, that all others must give place to it. But I would be understood here to speak only of opinions ridiculous, foolish, and absurd; with conclusions and actions suitable to them, at the same time when the most reasonable propositions are often unanimously rejected. And as all assemblies of men are liable to this accusation, so likewise there are natural absurdities from which the wisest states are not exempt; which proceed less from the nature of their climate than that of their government; the Gauls, the Britons, the Spaniards, and Italians, having retained very little of the characters given them in ancient history.

By these and the like reflections, I have been often led to consider some public absurdities in our own country, most of which are, in my opinion, directly against the rules of right reason, and are attended with great inconveniences to the state. I shall mention such of them as come into memory, without observing any

method; and I shall give my reason why I take them to be absurd in their nature, and pernicious in their consequence.

It is absurd that any person, who professes a different form of worship from that which is national, should be trusted with a vote for electing members into the house of commons; because every man is full of zeal for his own religion, although he regards not morality; and, therefore, will endeavour to his utmost to bring in a representative of his own principles, which, if they be popular, may endanger the religion established; and which, as it has formerly happened, may alter the whole frame of government.

A standing army in England, whether in time of peace or war, is a direct absurdity: for it is no part of our business to be a warlike nation otherwise than by our fleets. In foreign wars we have no concern further than in conjunction with allies, whom we may either assist by sea, or by foreign troops paid with our money: but mercenary troops in England can be of no use, except to awe senates, and thereby promote arbitrary power, in a monarchy or oligarchy.

That the election of senators should be of any charge to the candidates is an absurdity; but that it should be so to a ministry, is a manifest acknowledgment of of their prince and country, or well understood wherein the worst designs. If a ministry intended the service their own security best consisted, (as it is impossible that a parliament freely elected, according to the original institution, can do any hurt to a tolerable prince or tolerable ministry,) they would use the strongest methods to leave the people to their own free choice; the members would then consist of persons who had the best estates in the neighbourhood or country, or, at least, never of strangers. And surely this is at least full as requisite a circumstance to a legislator as to a juryman, who ought to be, if possible, ex vicinio; since such persons must be supposed the best judges of the wants and desires of their several boroughs and counties. To choose a representative for Berwick, whose estate is at Land's End, would have been thought in former times a very great solecism. How much more as it is at present, where so many persons are returned for boroughs who do not possess a foot of land in the kingdom?

By the old constitution, whoever possessed a freehold in land, by which he was a gainer of forty shillings a-year, had the privilege to vote for a knight of the shire. The good effects of this law are wholly eluded, partly by the course of time, and partly by corruption. Forty shillings in those ages were equal to twenty pounds in ours; and, therefore, it was then a want of sagacity to fix that privilege to a determinate sum, rather than to a certain quantity of land, arable or pasture, able to produce a certain quantity of corn and hay. And, therefore, it is highly absurd, and against the intent of the law, that this defect is not regulated.

But the matter is still worse; for any gentleman can, upon occasion, make as many freeholders as his estate of settlement will allow, by making leases for life of land at a rack-rent of forty shillings; where a tenant, who is not worth one farthing a-year when his rent is paid, shall be held a legal voter for a person to represent his county. Neither do I enter into half the frauds that are practised upon this occasion.

It is likewise absurd, that boroughs decayed are not absolutely extinguished, because the returned members do in reality represent nobody at all; and that several large towns are not represented, though full of industrious townsmen, who must advance the trade of the kingdom.

The claim of senators, to have themselves and servants exempted from lawsuits and arrests is manifestly absurd. The proceedings at law are already so scanda

lous a grievance, upon account of the delays, that they little need any addition. Whoever is either not able, or not willing, to pay his just debts, or to keep other men out of their lands, would evade the decision of the law, is surely but ill qualified to be a legislator. A criminal with as good reason might sit on the bench, with a power of condemning men to be hanged for their honesty. By the annual sitting of parliaments, and the days of privilege preceding and subsequent, a senator is one half of the year beyond the reach of common justice.

That the sacred person of a senator's footman shall be free from arrest, although he undoes the poor alewife by running on score, is a circumstance of equal wisdom and justice, to avoid the great evil of his master's lady wanting her complement of liveries behind the coach.

OF THE EDUCATION OF LADIES.

THERE is a subject of controversy which I have frequently met with, in mixed and select companies of both sexes, and sometimes only of men :-" Whether it be prudent to choose a wife who has good natural sense, some taste of wit and humour, sufficiently versed in her own natural language, able to read and relish history, books of travels, moral or entertaining discourses, and be a tolerable judge of the beauties in poetry?" This question is generally determined in the negative by the women themselves, but almost universally by

the men."

We must observe, that in this debate, those whom we call men and women of fashion are only to be understood, not merchants, tradesmen, or others of such occupations who are not supposed to have shared in a liberal education. I except, likewise, all ministers of state during their power, lawyers and physicians in great practice, persons in such employments as take up the greater part of the day, and perhaps some other conditions of life which I cannot call to mind. Neither must I forget to except all gentlemen of the army, from the general to the ensign; because those qualifications abovementioned in a wife, are wholly out of their ele ment and comprehension; together with all mathematicians, and gentlemen lovers of music, metaphysicians, virtuosi, and great talkers, who have all amusements enough of their own. All these put together will amount to a great number of adversaries, whom I shall have no occasion to encounter, because I am already of their sentiments. Those persons whom I mean to include, are the bulk of lords, knights, and squires, throughout England, whether they reside between the town and country, or generally in either. do also include those of the clergy, who have tolerably good preferments in London or any other parts of the kingdom.

The most material arguments that I have met with, on the negative side of this great question, are what I shall now impartially report in as strong a light as I think they can bear.

It is argued, "That the great end of marriage is propagation that, consequently, the principal business of a wife is to breed children, and to take care of them in their infancy that the wife is to look to her family, watch over the servants, see that they do their work: that she be absent from her house as little as possible: that she is answerable for everything amiss in her family that she is to obey all the lawful commands of her husband, and visit or be visited by no persons whom he disapproves that her whole business, if well performed, will take up most hours of the day: that the greater she is, and the more servants she keeps, her inspection must increase accordingly; for as a family represents a kingdom, so the wife, who is her husband's

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first minister, must, under him, direct all the officers of state, even to the lowest; and report their behaviour to her husband, as the first minister does to his prince: that such a station requires much time, and thought, and order; and if well executed, leaves but little time for visits or diversions: that a humour of reading books, except those of devotion or housewifery, is apt to turn a woman's brain: that plays, romances, novels, and love-poems, are only proper to instruct them how to carry on an intrigue: that all affectation of knowledge, beyond what is merely domestic, renders them vain, conceited, and pretending that the natural levity of woman wants ballast; and when she once begins to think she knows more than others of her sex, she will begin to despise her husband, and grow fond of every coxcomb who pretends to any knowledge in books: that she will learn scholastic words; make herself ridiculous by pronouncing them wrong, and applying them absurdly in all companies: that, in the mean time, her household affairs, and the care of her children, will be wholly laid aside; her toilet will be crowded with all the under wits, where the conversation will pass in criticising on the last play or poem that comes out, and she will be careful to remember all the remarks that were made, in order to retail them in the next visit, especially in company who know nothing of the matter that she will have all the impertinence of a pedant without the knowledge; and for every new acquirement, will become so much the worse."

To say the truth, that shameful and almost universal neglect of good education among our nobility, gentry, and indeed among all others who are born to good estates, will make this essay of little use to the present age; for, considering the modern way of training up both sexes in ignorance, idleness, and vice, it is of little consequence how they are coupled together. And therefore my speculations on this subject can be only of use to a small number; for, in the present situation of the world, none but wise and good men can fail of missing their match, whenever they are disposed to marry; and consequently there is no reason for complaint on either side. The forms by which a husband and wife are to live, with regard to each other and to the world, are sufficiently known and fixed, in direct contradiction to every precept of morality, religion, or civil institution; it would be therefore an idle attempt to aim at breaking so firm an establishment.

But as it sometimes happens that an elder brother dies late enough to leave the younger at the university after he has made some progress in learning; if we suppose him to have a tolerable genius, and a desire to improve it, he may consequently learn to value and esteem wisdom and knowledge wherever he finds them, even after his father's death, when his title and estate come into his own possession. Of this kind, I reckon, by a favourable computation there may possibly be found, by a strict search among the nobility and gentry throughout England, about five hundred. Among those of all other callings or trades who are able to maintain a son at the university, about treble that number. The sons of clergymen bred to learning with any success, must, by reason of their parents' poverty, be very inconsiderable, many of them being only admitted servitors in colleges, and consequently proving good for nothing: I shall therefore count them to be not above fourscore. But, to avoid fractions, I shall suppose there may possibly be a round number of two thousand male human creatures in England, including Wales, who have a tolerable share of reading and good sense. I include in this list all persons of superior abilities, or great genius, or true judgment and taste, or of profound literature, who, I am confident, we may reckon to be at least five-and-twenty.