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I do not know that I ever heard him make what they call a compliment, or be particular in his address to any lady; and yet I never heard any woman speak of him but with a peculiar regard. I believe he has been often beloved, but know not that he was ever yet a lover. The great secret among them is to be amiable without design. He has a voluble speech, a vacant countenance, and easy action, which represents the fact which he is relating with greater delight than it would have been to have been present at the transaction he recounts. For you see it not only your own way by the bare narration, but have the additional pleasure of his sense of it by this manner of representing it. There are mixed in his talk so many pleasant ironies, that things which deserve the severest language are made ridiculous instead of odious, and you see every thing in the most good-natured aspect it can bear. It is wonderfully entertaining to me to hear him so exquisitely pleasant, and never say an ill-natured thing. He is with all his acquaintance the person generally chosen to reconcile any difference, and if it be capable of accommodation, Tom Lizard is an unexceptionable referee. It has happened to him more than once, that he has been employed, by each opposite in a private manner, to feel the pulse of the adversary; and when each has proposed the decision of the matter by any whom the other should name, he has taken hold of the occasion, and put on the authority assigned by them both, so seasonably, that they have begun a new correspondence with each other, fortified by his friendship to whom they both owe the value they have for one another, and consequently confer a greater measure of their good-will upon the interposer. I must repeat, that above all, my

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young man is excellent at raising the subject on which he speaks, and casting a light upon it more agreeable to his company, than they thought the subject was capable of. He avoids all emotion and violence, and never is warm but on an affectionate occasion. Gentleness is what peculiarly distinguishes him from other men, and it runs through all his words and actions.

Mr. William, the next brother, is not of this smooth make, nor so ready to accommodate himself to the humours and inclinations of other men, but to weigh what passes with some severity. He is ever searching into the first springs and causes of any action or circumstance, insomuch, that if it were not to be expected that experience and conversation would allay that humour, it must inevitably turn him to ridicule. But it is not proper to break in upon an inquisitive temper, that is of use to him in the way of life which he proposes to himself, to wit, the study of the law, and the endeavour to arrive at a faculty in pleading. I have been very careful to kill in him any pretensions to follow men already eminent, any farther than as their success is an encouragement; but make it my endeavour to cherish, in the principal and first place, his eager pursuit of solid knowledge in his profession: for I think that clear conception will produce clear expression, and clear expression proper action: I never saw a man speak very well, where I could not apparently observe this, and it shall be a maxim with me till I see an instance to the contrary. When young and unexperienced men take any particular person for their pattern, they are apt to imitate them in such things, to which their want of knowledge makes them attribute success, and not to the real causes of it. Thus one

may have an air, which proceeds from a just sufficiency and knowledge of the matter before him, which may naturally produce some motion of his head and body, which might become the bench better than the bar. How painfully wrong would this be in a youth at his first appearance, when it is not well even for the sergeant of the greatest weight and dignity. But I will, at this time, with an hint only of his way of life, leave Mr. William at his study in the Temple.

The youngest son, Mr. John, is now in the twentieth year of his age, and has had the good for

tune and honour to be chosen last election fellow of

All-Souls college in Oxford. He is very graceful in his person; has height, strength, vigour, and a certain chearfulness and serenity that creates a sort of love, which people at first sight observe is ripening into esteem. He has a sublime vein in poetry, and a warm manner in recommending, either in speech or writing, whatever he has earnestly at heart. This excellent young man has devoted himself to the service of his Creator; and with an aptitude to every agreeable quality, and every happy talent, that could make a man shine in a court, or command in a camp, he is resolved to go into holy orders. He is inspired with a true sense of that function, when chosen from a regard to the interests of piety and virtue, and a scorn of whatever men call great in a transitory being, when it comes in competition with what is unchangeable and eternal. Whatever men would undertake from a passion to glory, whatever they would do for the service of their country, this youth has a mind prepared to atchieve for the salvation of souls. What gives me great hopes that he will one day make an extraordinary figure in the Christian world, is, that

his invention, his memory, judgment and imagination, are always employed in this one view; and I do not doubt but in my future precautions to present the youth of this age with more agreeable narrations, compiled by this young man on the subject of heroic piety, than any they can meet with in the legends of love and honour.

N° 14. FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1713.

Nec scit, qua sit iter, nec si sciat imperet

OVID. Met. 1. ii. 170.

Nor did he know

Which way to turn the reins, or where to go;
Nor would the horfes, had he known, obey.

SIR,

'TO THE GUARDIAN.

ADDISON.

You having in your first paper declared, among other things, that you will publish whatever you think may conduce to the advancement of the conversation of gentlemen, I cannot but hope you will give my young masters, when I have told you their age, condition, and how they lead their lives, and who, though I say it, are as docile as any youths in Europe, a lesson which they very much want, to restrain them from the in-. fection of bad company, and squandering away their time in idle and unworthy pursuits. A word

from you, I am very well assured, will prevail more with them than any remonstrance they will meet with at home. The eldest is now about seventeen years of age, and the younger fifteen, born of noble parentage, and to plentiful fortunes. They have a very good father and mother, and also a governor, but come very seldom (except against their wills) in the sight of any of them. That which I observe they have most relish to, is horses and cock-fighting, which they too well understand, being almost positive at first sight to tell you which horse will win the match, and which cock the battle; and if you are of another opinion, will lay you what you please on their own, and it is odds but you lose. What I fear to be the greatest prejudice to them, is their keeping much closer to their horses heels than their books, and conversing more with their stablemen and lackies than with their relations and gentlemen: and I apprehend, are at this time better skilled how to hold the reins, and drive a coach, than to translate a verse in Virgil or Horace. For the other day, taking a walk abroad, they met accidentally in the fields with two young ladies, whose. conversation they were very much pleased with, and being desirous to ingratiate themselves further into their favour, prevailed with them, though they had never seen them before in their lives, to take the air in a coach of their father's which waited for them at the end of Gray's-inn-lane. The youths ran with the wings of love, and ordered the coachman to wait at the town's end till they came back. One of our young gentlemen got up before, and the other behind, to act the parts they had long, by the direction and example of their comrades, taken much pains to qualify themselves for, and so gallopped off. What these mean entertainments will

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