right of absence in company, his pretended right should, in my mind, be turned into an involuntary absence, by his perpetual exclusion out of company. However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think them so; but rather take their tone, and conform in some degree to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If therefore you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill spoken of, rather be loved than hated, remember to have that constant attention about you, which flatters every man's little vanity; and the want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his resentment, or at least his ill-will.

* *

I know no one thing more offensive to a company than inattention and distraction. It is showing them the utmost contempt; and people never forgive contempt. No man is distrait with the man he fears, or the woman he loves; which is a proof that every man can get the better of that distraction, when he thinks it worth his while to do so; and, take my word for it. it is always worth his while. For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man, than with an absent one; for, if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he

shows me no contempt; whereas, the absent man, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention. Besides, can an absent man make any observations upon the characters, customs, and manners of the company? No. He may be in the best companies all his lifetime (if they will admit him, which, if I were they, I would not), and never be one jot the wiser. I never will converse with an absent man; one may as well talk to a deaf one. It is, in truth, a practical blunder, to address ourselves to a man who, we see plainly, neither hears, minds, nor understands us. Moreover, I aver, that no mar is, in any degree, fit for either business or conversation, who cannot, and does not, direct and command his attention to the present object, be that what it will.

AN ABSENT MAN.

You have often seen, and I have as often made you observe, L**'s distinguished inattention and awkwardness. Wrapped up, like a Laputan, in intense thought, and, possibly, sometimes in no thought at all (which, I believe, is very often the case with absent people), he does not know his most intimate acquaintance by sight, or answers them as if he were at cross purposes. He leaves his hat in one room, his sword in another, and would leave his shoes in a third, if his buckles, though awry, did not

save them: his legs and arms, by his awkward management of them, seem to have undergone the Question extraordinaire; and his head, always hanging upon one or other of his shoulders, seems to have received the first stroke upon a block. I sincerely value and esteem him for his parts, learning, and virtue; but, for the soul of me, I cannot love him in company.

INDISPENSABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

I here subjoin a list of all those necessary, ornamental accomplishments (without which no man living can either please, or rise in the world), which hitherto I fear you want, and which only require your care and attention to possess.

To speak elegantly, whatever language you speak in; without which nobody will hear you with pleasure, and consequently you will speak to very little purpose.

An agreeable and distinct elocution; without which nobody will hear you with patience. This every body may acquire, who is not born with some imperfection in the organs of speech. You are not; and therefore it is wholly in your power. You need take much less pains for it than Demosthenes did.

A distinguished politeness of manners and address; which common sense, observation, good company, and imitation, will infallibly give you, if you will accept of it.

A genteel carriage and graceful motions, with the air of a man of fashion. A good dancing-master, with some care on your part, and some imitation of those who excel, will soon bring this about.

To be extremely clean in your person, and perfectly well dressed, according to the fashion, be that what it will. Your negligence of dress, while you were a school-boy, was pardonable, but would not be so now.

Upon the whole, take it for granted, that, without these accomplishments, all you know, and all you can do, will avail very little.

AFFECTATION IN THE MALE SEX.

Monsieur de la Rochefoucault very justly observes, that people are never ridiculous from their real, but from their affected characters: they cannot help being what they are, but they can help attempting to appear what they are not. A hump-back is by no means ridiculous, unless it be under a fine coat; nor a weak understanding, unless it assumes the lustre and ornaments of a bright one. Good nature conceals and pities the inevitable defects of body or mind, but is not obliged to treat acquired anes with the least indulgence. Those who would pass upon the world talents which they have not, are as guilty, in the common course of society, as those who, in the way of trade, would put off false money, knowing it to

be such; and it is as much the business of ridicule to expose the former, as of the law to punish the latter.

I do not mean here to consider the affectation of moral virtues, which comes more properly under the definition of hypocrisy, and justly excites our indignation and abhorrence, as a criminal deceit; but I shall confine myself now to the affectation of those lesser talents and accomplishments, without any of which a man may be a very worthy, valuable man, and only becomes a very ridiculous one by pretending to them. These people are the proper, and, it may be, the only proper objects of ridicule; for they are above fools, who are below it, and below wise men, who are above it. They are the coxcombs Lord Rochester describes as self-created, and of whom he says, that God never made one worth a groat. Besides, as they are rebels and traitors to common sense, whose natural born subjects they are, I am justified in treating them with the utmost rigour.

I cannot be of the general opinion, that these coxcombs have first imposed upon themselves, and really think themselves what they would have others think them. On the contrary, I am persuaded that every man knows himself best, and is his own severest censor; nay, I am convinced that many a man has lived and died with faults and weaknesses, which nobody but himself ever discovered. It is true, they keep