those who only affect to be so. As her good breeding proceeds jointly from good nature and good sense, the former inclines her to oblige, and the latter shows her the easiest and best way of doing it. Woman's beauty, like

man's wit, is generally fatal to the owners, unless directed by a judgment which seldom accompanies a great degree of either: her beauty seems but the proper and decent lodging for such a mind; she knows the true value of it, and, far from thinking that it authorizes impertinence and coquetry, it redoubles her care to avoid those errors, that are its usual attendants. Thus she not only unites in herself all the advantages of body and mind, but even reconciles contradictions in others; for she is loved and esteemed, though envied by all.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON AFFECTATION.

Most people complain of Fortune, few of NaAure; and the kinder they think the latter has been to them, the more they murmur at what they call the injustice of the former.

Why have not I the riches, the rank, the power, of such and such? is the common expostulation with Fortune: but why have not I the merit, the talents, the wit, or the beauty, of such and such others? is a reproach rarely or never made to Nature.

The truth is, that Nature, seldom profuse, and seldom niggardly, has distributed her gifts

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more equally than she is generally supposed have done. Education and situation make great difference. Culture improves, and casions elicit, natural talents. I make no dou but there are potentially, if I may use that p dantic word, many Bacons, Lockes, Newtor Cesars, Cromwells, and Marlboroughs, at t plough tail, behind counters, and, perhap even among the nobility; but the soil must b cultivated, and the seasons favourable, for the fruit to have all its spirit and flavour.

If sometimes our common parent has bee a little partial, and not kept the scales quit even; if one preponderates too much, we throy into the lighter a due counterpoise of vanity which never fails to set all right. Hence it happens, that hardly any one man would, without reserve, and in every particular, change with any other.

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Though all are thus satisfied with the dispensations of Nature, how few listen to her voice! how few follow her as a guide! vain she points out to us the plain and direc way to truth; vanity, fancy, affectation, and fashion, assume her shape, and wind us throug fairy ground to folly and error.

These deviations from nature are often at tended by serious consequences, and alway by ridiculous ones; for there is nothing true than the trite observation, "that people ar never ridiculous for being what they really ar but for affecting what they really are not.

Afectation is the only source, and at the same time the only justifiable object, of ridicule. No man whatsoever, be his pretensions what they will, has a natural right to be ridiculous: it is an acquired right, and not to be acquired without some industry; which, perhaps, is the reason why so many people are so jealous and tenacious of it. Even some people's vices are not their own, but affected and adopted, though at the same time unenjoyed, in hopes of shining in those fashionable societies, where the reputation of certain vices gives lustre. In these cases, the execution is commonly as awkward as the design is absurd ; and the ridicule equals. the guilt.

This calls to my mind a thing that really happened not many years ago. A young fellow of some rank and fortune, just let loose from the university, resolved, in order to make a figure in the world, to assume the shining character of, what he called, a rake. By way of learning the rudiments of his intended profession, he frequented the theatres, where he was often drunk, and always noisy. Being one night at the representation of that most absurd play, the Libertine destroyed, he was so charmed with the profligacy of the hero of the piece, that, to the edification of the audience, he swore many oaths that he would be the libertine destroyed. A discreet friend of his, who sat by him, kindly represented to him, that to be the libertine was a laudable design,

which he greatly approved of; but that to be the libertine destroyed, seemed to him an unnecessary part of his plan, and rather rash. He persisted, however, in his first resolution, and insisted upon being the libertine, and destroyed. Probably he was so; at least the presumption is in his favour. There are, I am peaded, so many cases of this nature, that, for my own part, I would desire no greater step towards the reformation of manners for the next twenty years than that our people should have no vices but their own.

The blockhead, who affects wisdom, because nature has given him dulness, becomes ridiculous only by his adopted character; whereas he might have stagnated unobserved in his native mud, or perhaps have engrossed deeds, collected shells, and studied heraldry, or logic, with some success.

The shining coxcomb aims at all, and decides finally upon every thing, because nature has given him pertness. The degree of parts and animal spirits, necessary to constitute that character, if properly applied, might have made him useful in many parts of life; but his affectation and presumption make him useless in most, and ridiculous in all.

The septuagenary fine gentleman might probably, from his long experience and knowledge of the world, be esteemed and respected in the several relations of domestic life, which, at his age, nature points out to him: he will

most ridiculously spin out the rotten thread of his former gallantries. He dresses, languishes ogles, as he did at five-and-twenty; and modestly intimates that he is not without a bonne fortune, which bonne fortune at last appears to be the prostitute he had long kept, not to himself, whom he marries and owns, becaus "the poor girl was so fond of him, and so esirous to be made an honest woman."

The sexagenary widow remembers that she was handsome, but forgets that it was thirty years ago, and thinks herself so, or, at least, very likeable, still. The pardonable affectations of her youth and beauty unpardonably continue, increase even with her years, and are doubly exerted in hopes of concealing the number. All the gaudy, glittering parts of dress, which rather degraded than adorned her beauty in its bloom, now expose to the highest and justest ridicule her shrivelled or her overgrown She totters or sweats under the load of her jewels, embroideries, and brocades, which, like so many Egyptian hieroglyphics, serve only to authenticate the venerable antiquity of her august mummy. Her eyes dimly twinkle tenderness, or leer desire; their language, however inelegant, is intelligible, and the half-pay captain understands it. He addresses his vows to her vanity, which assures her they are sincere. She pities him, and prefers him to credit, decency, and every social

carcass.