people in your favor, bends them towards you, and makes them wish to be like you. Awkwardness can proceed but from two causes, either from not having kept good company, or from not having attended to it. As for your keeping good company, I will take care of that; do you take care to observe their ways and manners, and to form your own upon them. Attention is absolutely necessary for this, as indeed it is for everything else; and a man without attention is not fit to live in the world. When an awkward fellow first comes into a room, it is highly probable that his sword gets between his legs and throws him down, or makes him stumble at least; when he has recovered this accident, he goes and places himself in the very place of the whole room where he should not; there he soon lets his hat fall down, and in taking it up again throws down his cane; in recovering his cane, his hat falls a second time, so that he is a quarter of an hour before he is in order again. If he drinks tea or coffee, he certainly scalds his mouth, and lets either the cup or the saucer fall, and spills either the tea or coffee in his breeches. At dinner, his awkwardness distinguishes itself particularly, as he has more to do; there he holds his knife, fork, and spoon differently from other people, eats with his knife, to the great danger of his mouth, picks his teeth with his fork, and puts his spoon into the dishes again. If he is to carve he can never hit the joint, but in his vain efforts to cut through the bone scatters the sauce in everybody's face. He generally daubs himself with soup and grease, though his napkin is commonly

...

stuck through a button-hole and tickles his chin. When he drinks, he infallibly coughs in his glass and besprinkles the company. His hands are troublesome to him when he has not something in them, and he does not know where to put them ; but they are in perpetual motion between his bosom and his breeches; he does not wear his clothes, and in short does nothing, like other people. All this, I own, is not in any degree criminal; but it is highly disagreeable and ridiculous in company, and ought most carefully to be avoided by whoever desires to please.

From this account of what you should not do, you may easily judge what you should do; and a due attention to the manners of people of fashion, and who have seen the world, will make it habitual and familiar to you.

There is, likewise, an awkwardness of expression and words most carefully to be avoided, such as false English, bad pronunciation, old sayings, and common proverbs, which are so many proofs of having kept bad and low company. For example: if, instead of saying that tastes are different and that every man has his own peculiar one, you should let off a proverb, and say, That what is one man's meat is another man's poison; or else, Every one as they like, as the good man said when he kissed his cow, everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept company with anybody above footmen and housemaids.

Attention will do all this; and without attention nothing is to be done: want of attention, which is

really want of thought, is either folly or madness. You should not only have attention to everything but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room, their motions, their looks, and their words, and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer. This quick and unobserved observation is of infinite advantage in life, and is to be acquired with care; and on the contrary what is called absence, which is thoughtlessness and want of attention about what is doing, makes a man so like either a fool or a madman, that for my part I see no real difference. A fool never has thought; a madman has lost it; and an absent man is, for the time, without it.

III.

TRUE PRAISE. - ELEMENTARY POLITENESS.

SPA, Aug. 6, 1741.

DEAR BOY, I am very well pleased with the several performances you sent me, and still more so with Mr. Maittaire's letter that accompanied them, in which he gives me a much better account of you than he did in his former. Laudari a laudato viro was always a commendable ambition; encourage that ambition, and continue to deserve the praises of the praiseworthy. While you do so, you shall have whatever you will from me; and when you cease to do so, you shall have nothing.

I am glad you have begun to compose a little ; it will give you a habit of thinking upon subjects, which is at least as necessary as reading them; therefore pray send me your thoughts upon this subject,

"Non sibi, sed toti genitum se credere mundo."

It is a part of Cato's character in Lucan, who says that Cato did not think himself born for himself only, but for all mankind. Let me know, then, whether you think that a man is born only for his own pleasure and advantage, or whether he is not obliged to contribute to the good of the society in which he lives and of all mankind in general. This is certain, — that every man receives advantages from society which he could not have if he were the only man in the world: therefore is he not in some measure in debt to society; and is he not obliged to do for others what they do for him? You may do this in English or Latin, which you please; for it is the thinking part, and not the language, that I mind in this

case.

I warned you in my last against those disagreeable tricks and awkwardnesses which many people contract when they are young by the negligence of their parents, and cannot get quit of them when they are old, such as odd motions, strange postures, and ungenteel carriage. But there is likewise an awkwardness of the mind that ought to be and with care may be avoided; as, for instance, to mistake names. To speak of Mr. What-d'ye-call

One

him or Mrs. Thingum or How-d'ye-call-her is excessively awkward and ordinary. To call people by improper titles and appellations is so too; as my Lord for Sir, and Sir for my Lord. To begin a story or narration when you are not perfect in it and cannot go through with it, but are forced possibly to say in the middle of it, "I have forgot the rest," is very unpleasant and bungling. must be extremely exact, clear, and perspicuous in everything one says; otherwise instead of entertaining or informing others, one only tires and puzzles them. The voice and manner of speaking, too, are not to be neglected. Some people almost shut their mouths when they speak and mutter so that they are not to be understood; others speak so fast and sputter that they are not to be understood neither; some always speak as loud as if they were talking to deaf people; and others so low that one cannot hear them. All these habits are awkward and disagreeable, and are to be avoided by attention; they are the distinguishing marks of the ordinary people who have had no care taken of their education. You cannot imagine how necessary it is to mind all these little things; for I have seen many people with great talents ill received for want of having these talents too, and others well received only from their little talents, and who had no great ones. Adieu.