ness and inattention, to the diminution, I will venture to say, even of their own pleasures, if they know what true pleasures are.

Love and friendship necessarily produce, and justly authorize, familiarity; but then goodbreeding must mark out its bounds, and say, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther; for I have known many a passion and many a friendship degraded, weakened, and at last, if I may use the expression, wholly slatterned away, by an unguarded and illiberal familiarity. Nor is good-breeding less the ornament and cement of common social life: it connects, it endears, and, at the same time that it indulges the just liberty, restrains that indecent licentiousness of conversation, which alienates and provokes. Great talents make a man famous, great merit makes him respected, and great learning makes him esteemed; but good-breeding alone can make him be loved.

I recommend it in a more particular manner to my countrywomen, as the greatest ornament to such of them as have beauty, and the safest refuge for those who have not. It facilitates the victories, decorates the triumphs, and secures the conquests of beauty, or in some degree atones for the want of it. It almost deifies a fine woman, and procures respect at least to those who have not charms enough to be admired.

Upon the whole, though good-breeding cannot, strictly speaking, be called a virtue yet

at is productive of so many good effects, that, in my opinion, it may justly be reckoned more than a mere accomplishment.

GOOD COMPANY.

Good company is not what respective sets of company are pleased either to call or think themselves, but it is that company which all the people of the place call, and acknowledge to be, good company, notwithstanding some objections which they may form to some of the individuals who compose it. It consists chiefly (but by no means without exception) 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. Nay, so motley a thing is good company, that many people, without birth, rank, or merit, intrude into it by their own forwardness, and others slide into it by the protection of some considerable person; and some even of indifferent characters and morals make part of it. But in the main, the good part preponderates, and people of infamous and blasted characters are never admitted. In this fashionable good company, the best manners and the best language of the place are most unquestionably to be learnt; for they establish and give the tone to both, which are therefore called the language and manners of good

company; there being no legal tribunal to ascertain either.

A company, consisting wholly of people of the first quality, cannot, for that reason, be called good company, in the common acceptation of the phrase, unless they are, into the bargain, the fashionable and accredited company of the place; for people of the very first quality can be as silly, as ill-bred, and as worthless, as people of the meanest degree. On the other hand, a company consisting entirely of people of very low condition, whatever their merit or parts may be, can never be called good company; and consequently should not be much frequented, though by no means despised.

A company wholly composed of men of learning, though greatly to be valued and respected, is not meant by the words good company; they cannot have the easy manners and tournure of the world, as they do not live in it. If you can bear your part well in such a company, it is extremely right to be in it sometimes, and you will be but more esteemed in other companies, for having a place in that. But then do not let it engross you; for, if you do, you will only be considered as one of the literati by profession; which is not the way either to shine, or rise in the world.

The company of professed wits and poets is extremely inviting to most young men ; who, if they have wit themselves, are pleased with

verse; 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, and of their own, in time, by these genteel and fashionable vices. A whoremaster, in a flux, or without nose, is a very genteel person indeed; and well worthy of imitation! A drunkard, vomit ing up at night the wine of the day, and stupi fied by the headache all the next, is, doubtless, a fine model to copy from! And a gamester, tearing his hair and blaspheming, for having lost more than he had in the world, is surely a most amiable character! No: these are allays, and great ones too, which can never adorn any character, but will always debase the best. To prove this; suppose any man, without parts and some other good qualities, to be merely a whoremaster, a drunkard, or a gamester; how will he be looked upon by all sorts of people? Why, as a most contemptible and vicious animal. Therefore it is plain, that, in these mixed characters, the good part only makes people forgive, but not approve, the bad.

GLUTTONY.

Taste is now the fashionable word of the fashionable world. Every thing must be done with taste that is settled; but where and what that taste is, is not quite so certain, for

after all the pains I have taken to find out what was meant by the word, and whether those who use it oftenest had any clear idea annexed to it, I have only been able negatively to discover, that they do not mean their own natural taste; but, on the contrary, that they Du have sacrificed it to an imaginary one, of which a they can give no account. They build houses o in taste, which they cannot live in with conveniency;* they suffer with impatience the music they pretend to hear with rapture, and they even eat nothing they like, for the sake of eating in taste.

Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;

Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats.-POPE. It is certain the Commandments, now so much neglected, if not abrogated, might be observed with much less self-denial, than these imaginary laws of taste, to which so exact and scrupulous au obedience is paid.

I take taste, when not used for the sensation of the palate, which is its proper signification, to be a metaphor to express that judgment which each man forms to himself of those things, which are not contained in any certain

*This was the case of a general, who, having applied to an English nobleman, celebrated for his taste in architecture, to direct the building of a house for himself, had one constructed indeed with great elegance and regularity on the outside, but altogether destitute of every convenience for a family to live in. Lord Chesterfield, upon seeing it, told the gene al, "If I had your house, I would hire the opposite one to live in, and enjoy the prospect."