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that I wish you, unless you have at the fame time at least an equal portion of judgment to keep it in good order) wear it, like your sword, in the fcabbard, and do not brandish it to the terror of the whole company. Wit is a fhining quality, that every body admires; molt people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it, unlefs in themfelves:-a man must have a good share of wit him. felf, to endure a great fhare in another. When wit exerts itfelf in fatire, it is a moft malignant diftemper: wit, it is true, may be fhewn in fatire, but fatire does not conftitute wit, as many imagine. A man of wit ought to find a thoufand better occafions of fhewing

it.

Abftain, therefore, moft carefully from fatire; which, though it fall on no particular perfon in company, and momentarily, from the malignancy of the human heart, pleafes all; yet, upon reflection, it frightens all too. Every one thinks it may be his turn next; and will hate you for what he finds you could fay of him, more than be obliged to you for what you do not fay. Fear and hatred are next-door neighbours: the more wit you have, the more goodnature and politenefs you must fhew, to induce people to pardon your fuperiority; for that is no eafy matter.

Appear to have rather lefs than more wit than you really have. A wise man will live at leaft as much within his wit as his income. Content your felf with good fenfe and reafon, which at the long run are ever fure to please every body who has either: if wit comes into the bargain, welcome it, but never invite it. Bear this truth always in your mind, that you may be admired for your wit, if you have any; but that nothing but good fenfe and good qualities can make you be beloved. Thefe are fubftantial every day's wear; whereas wit is a holiday-fuit, which people put on chiefly to be stared at.

There is a fpecies of minor wit, which is much ufed, and much more abused; I mean raillery. It is a moft mischievous and dangerous weapon, when in unkilful or clumfy hands; and it is much fafer to let it quite alone than to play with it; and yet almost every body do

play with it, though they fee daily the quarrels and heart-burnings that it occafions.

The injuftice of a bad man is fooner forgiven than the infults of a witty one; the former only hurts one's liberty and property, but the latter hurts and mortifies that fecret pride which no human breaft is free from. I will allow that there is a fort of raillery which may not only be inoffenfive, but even flattering; as when, by a genteel irony, you accuse people of thofe imperfections which they are moft notoriously free from, and confequently infinuate that they poffefs the contrary virtues. You may fafely call Ariftides a knave, or a very handfome woman an ugly one. Take care, however, that neither the man's character nor the lady's beauty be in the leaft doubtful. But this fort of raillery requires a very light and steady hand to adminifterit. A little too ftrong, it may be mistaken into an offence; and a little too fmooth, it may be thought a fneer, which is a moft odious thing.

There is another fort, I will not call it wit, but merriment and buffoonery, which is mimicry. The most fuccefsful mimic in the world is always the moft abfurd fellow, and an ape is infinitely his fuperior. His profeffion is to imitate and ridicule thofe natural defects and deformities for which no man is in the leaft accountable, and in the imita tion of which he makes himself, for the time, as difagreeable and fhocking as thofe he mimics. But I will fay no more of thefe creatures, who only amufe the loweft rabble of mankind.

There is another fort of human animals, called wags, whofe profeffion is to make the company laugh immoderately; and who always fucceed, provided the company confit of fools; but who are equally disappointed in finding that they never can alter a mufcle in the face of a man of fenfe. This is a molt contemptible character, and never esteem, ed, even by thofe who are filly enough to be diverted by them,

Be content for yourself with found good fenfe and good manners, and let wit be thrown into the bargain, where it is proper and inoffenfive. Good fenfe will make you esteemed; good manners U u 4

will

will make you beloved; and wit will give a luftre to both. Chesterfield.

$33. Egotim to be avoided. The egotism is the moft ufual and favourite figure of molt people's rhetoric, and which I hope you will never adopt, but, on the contrary, moft fcrupulously avoid. Nothing is more difagreeable or irkfome to the company, than to hear a man either praifing or condemning himself; for both proceed from the fame motive, vanity. I would allow no man to speak of himself, unlefs in a court of juftice, in his own defence, or as a witnefs. Shall a man fpeak in his own praife? No: the hero of his own little tale always puzzles and difgufts the company; who do not know what to fay, or how to look. Shall he blame himself? No vanity is as much the motive of his condemnation as of his panegyric.

:

I have known many people take fhame to themselves, and, with a modeft contrition, confefs themselves guilty of most of the cardinal virtues. They have fuch a weakness in their nature, that they cannot help being too much moved with the misfortunes and miferies of their fel. low-creatures; which they feel perhaps more, but at least as much, as they do their own. Their generosity, they are fenfible, is imprudence; for they are apt to carry it too far, from the weak, the irrefiftible beneficence of their nature. They are poffibly too jealous of their honour too irafcible when they think it is touched; and this proceeds from their unhappy warm conftitution, which makes them too fenfible upon that point; and fo poffibly with refpect to all the virtues. A poor trick, and a wretched inftance of human vanity, and what defeats its own purpose.

Do you be fure never to fpeak of yourself, for yourself, nor against your felf; but let your character fpeak for you whatever that fays will be believed; but whatever you fay of it will not be believed, and only make you odious and ridiculous.

I know that you are generous and be nevolent in your nature; but that, tho' the principal point, is not quite enough; you must feem fo too. I do not mean oftentatiously; but do not be afhamed,

as many young fellows are, of owning the laudable fentiments of good-nature and humanity, which you really feel. I have known many young men, who defired to be reckoned men of fpirit, affect a hardness and unfeelingness which in reality they never had; their converfation is in the decifive and menacing tone, mixed with horrid and filly oaths; and all this to be thought men of fpirit. Aftonishing error this! which neceffarily reduces them to this dilemma: If they really mean what they fay, they are brutes; and if they do not, they are fools for faying it. This, however, is a common character among young men ; carefully avoid this contagion, and content yourself with being calmly and mildly refolute and fteady, when you are thoroughly convinced you are in the right; for this is true fpirit.

Obferve the à-propos in every thing you fay or do. In converfing with thofe who are much your fuperiors, however eafy and familiar you may and ought to be with them, preferve the refpect that is due to them. Converse with your equals with an easy familiarity, and, at the fame time, great civility and decency: but too much familiarity, according to the old faying, often breeds contempt, and fometimes quarrels. I know nothing more difficult in common be. haviour, than to fix due bounds to familiarity; too little implies an unfociable formality; too much deftroys friendly and focial intercourfe. The best rule I can give you to manage familiarity is, never to be more familiar with any body than you would be willing, and even with, that he should be with you. On the other hand, avoid that uncomfortable referve and coldness which is gene. rally the field of cunning or the protection of dulnefs. To your inferiors you should ufe a hearty benevolence in your words and actions, instead of a refined politenefs, which would be apt to make them fufpect that you rather laughed at them.

Carefully avoid all affectation either of body or of mind. It is a very true and a very trite obfervation, That no man is ridiculous for being what he really is, but for affecting to be what he is not. No man is aukward by nature, but by

affecting

affecting to be genteel. I have known many a man of common fenfe pafs generally for a fool, because he affected a degree of wit that nature had denied him. A plowman is by no means aukward in the exercife of his trade, but would be exceedingly ridiculous, if he attempted the air and graces of a man of fashion. You learned to dance; but it was not for the fake of dancing; it was to bring your air and motions back to what they would naturally have been, if they had had fair play, and had not been warped in youth by bad examples, and aukward imitations of other boys.

Nature may be cultivated and improved, both as to the body and the mind; but it is not to be extinguished by art; and all endeavours of that kind are abfurd, and an inexpreffible fund for ridicule. Your body and mind must be at eafe to be agreeable; but affecta tion is a particular reftraint, under which no man can be genteel in his carriage, or pleafing in his converfation. Do you think your motions would be eafy or graceful if you wore the cloaths of another man much flenderer or taller than yourfelf? Certainly not: it is the fame thing with the mind, if you affect a cha. racter that does not fit you, and that nature never intended for you.

In fine, it may be laid down as a general rule, that a man who defpairs of pleafing will never pleafe; a man that is fure that he fhall always pleafe wherever he goes, is a coxcomb; but the man who hopes and endeavours to please, will moft infallibly please.

Chesterfield.

$34. Extract from Lord BOLINGBROKE's Letters.

1736.

My Lord, You have engaged me on a fubject which interrupts the feries of thofe letters I was writing to you; but it is one which, I confefs, I have very much at heart. I fhall therefore explain myself fully, nor blush to reafon on principles that are out of fashion among men who intend nothing by ferving the public, but to feed their avarice, their vanity, and their luxury, without the fenfe of any duty they owe to God or man.

It feems to me, that in order to main

tain the moral fyftem of the world at a certain point, far below that of ideal perfection, (for we are made capable of conceiving what we are incapable of attaining) but however fufficient, upon the whole, to conftitute a ftate eafy and happy, or at the worst tolerable; I fay, it feems to me, that the Author of nature has thought fit to mingle from time to time among the focieties of men, a few, and but a few, of thofe on whom he is graciously pleafed to beftow a larger proportion of the ethereal fpirit than is given in the ordinary courfe of his providence to the fons of men. These are they who engross almoft the whole reafon of the fpecies, who are born to inftruct, to guide, and to preferve, who are defigned to be the tutors and the guardians of human kind. When they prove fuch, they exhibit to us examples of the highest virtue and the trueft piety; and they deferve to have their feftivals kept, inftead of that pack of anchorites and enthufiafts, with whose names the Calendar is crowded and difgraced. When thefe men apply their talents to other purpofes, when they ftrive to be great, and defpife being good, they commit a most facrilegious breach of truft; they pervert the means, they defeat, as far as lies in them, the defigns of Providence, and difturb, in fome fort, the fyftem of Infinite Wifdom. To mifapply thefe talents is the most diffused, and therefore the greatest of crimes in its nature and confequences; but to keep them unexerted and unemployed, is a crime too. Look about you, my Lord, from the palace to the cottage, you will find that the bulk of mankind is made to breathe the air of this atmofphere, to roam about this globe, and to confume, like the courtiers of Alcinous, the fruits of the earth. Nos numerus fumus fruges confumere nati. When they have trod this infipid round a certain number of years, and left others to do the fame after them, they have lived; and if they have performed, in fome tolerable degree, the ordinary moral duties of life, they have done all they were born to do. Look about you again, my Lord, nay, look into your own breast, and you will find that there are fuperior fpirits, men who fhew, even

from

from their infancy, tho' it be not always perceived by others, perhaps not always felt by themselves, that they were born for fomething more, and better. These are the men to whom the part I mentioned is affigned; their talents denote their general defignation, and the opportunities of conforming themfelves to it, that arife in the courfe of things, or that are prefented to them by any circumftances of rank and fituation in the fociety to which they belong, denote the particular vocation which it is not lawful for them to refift, nor even to neglect. The duration of the lives of fuch men as thefe is to be determined, I think, by the length and importance of the parts they act, not by the number of years that pafs between their coming into the world and their going out of it. Whether the piece be of three or five acts, the part may be long; and he who fuftains it through the whole, may be faid to die in the fulness of years; whilft he who declines it fooner, may be faid not to live out half his days,

his works; but the father was of another opinion.

But what was of all most wonderful, was a thing that feemed a monitrous fowl, which just then dropt through the fky-light, near his wife's apartment. It had a large body, two little difproportioned wings, a prodigious tail, but no head. As its colour was white, he took it at firft fight for a swan, and was concluding his fon would be a poet; but, on a nearer view, he perceived it to be fpeckled with black, in the form. of letters; and that it was indeed a paper-kite which had broke its leash by the impetuofity of the wind. His back was armed with the art military, his belly was filled with phyfic, his wings were the wings of Quarles and Withers, the feveral nodes of his voluminous tail were diverfified with feveral branches of fcience; where the Doctor beheld with great joy a knot of logic, a knot of metaphyfic, a knot of cafuiftry, a knot of polemical divinity, and a knot of common law, with a lanthorn of Jacob Behmen.

There went a report in the family,

§ 35, The Birth of MARTINUS SCRIB- that, as foon as he was born, he uttered

LERUS.

Nor was the birth of this great man unattended with prodigies: he himself has often told me, that on the night before he was born, Mrs. Scriblerus dream'd fhe has brought to bed of a huge ink-horn, out of which iffued feveral large ftreams of ink, as it had been a fountain. This dream was by her husband thought to fignify, that the child fhould prove a very voluminous writer. Likewife a crab-tree, that had been hitherto barren, appeared on a fudden laden with a vast quantity of crabs this fign alfo the old gentleman imagined to be a prognoftic of the acuteness of his wit. A great fwarm of wafps played round his cradle without hurting him, but were very trouble fome to all in the room befides. This feemed a certain prefage of the effects of his fatire. A dunghill was feen within the fpace of one night to be covered all over with mushrooms: this fome interpreted to promise the infant great fertility of fancy, but no long duration to

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the voice of nine feveral animals: he cried like a calf, bleated like a sheep, chattered like a magpye, grunted like a hog, neigh'd like a foal, croaked like a raven, mewed like a cat, gabbled like a goofe, and brayed like an afs: and the next morning he was found playing in his bed with two owls, which came down the chimney. His father was greatly rejoiced at all thefe figns, which betokened the variety of his eloquence, and the extent of his learning; but he was more particularly pleafed with the laft, as it nearly refembled what happened at the birth of Homer.

The Doctor and his Shield.

The day of the chrift'ning being come, and the houfe filled with goffips, the levity of whofe converfation fuited but ill with the gravity of Dr. Cornelius, he caft about how to pass this day more agreeable to his character; that is to fay, not without fome profitable conference, nor wholly without obferv. ance of fome ancient cuftom.

He remembered to have read in Theocritus,

critus, that the cradle of Hercules was a fhield and being poffeffed of an antique buckler, which he held as a moft inestimable relick, he determined to have the infant laid therein, and in that manner brought into the ftudy, to be fhewn to certain learned men of his acquaintance.

The regard he had for this fhield, had caufed him formerly to compile a differtation concerning it, proving from the feveral properties, and particularly the colour of the ruft, the exact chronology thereof.

With this treatife, and a moderate fupper, he propofed to entertain his guests; though he had alfo another defign, to have their affiftance in the calculation of his fon's nativity.

He therefore took the buckler out of a cafe (in which he always kept it, left it might contract any modern ruft) and intrufted it to his house-maid, with others, that, when the company was come, fhe should lay the child carefully in it, covered with a mantle of blue fattin.

The guests were no fooner feated, but they entered into a warm debate about the Triclinium, and the manner of Decubitus of the ancients, which Cornelius broke off in this manner:

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fight of the maid, who entered the room with the child: he took it in his arms, and proceeded :

Behold then my child, but first "behold the fhield: behold this ruft, 66 -or rather let me call it this pre"cious ærugo ;-behold this beautiful " varnish of time,-this venerable ver"dure of fo many ages!"-In fpeaking thefe words, he flowly lifted up the mantle which covered it inch by inch; but at every inch he uncovered, his cheeks grew paler, his hand trembled, his nerves failed, till on fight of the whole the tremor became univerfal: the fhield and the infant both dropped to the ground, and he had only ftrength enough to cry out," O God! my shield, "" my fhield!"

piece of antiquity, at the great (tho' "indeed inadequate) expence of all "the plate of our family, how happi"ly I carried it off, and how trium

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The truth was, the maid (extremely concerned for the reputation of her own cleanliness, and her young mafter's honour) had fcoured it as clean as her hand-irons.

Cornelius funk back on a chair, the guefls food aftonished, the infant fqualled, the maid ran in, fnatched it up again in her arms, flew into her mistress's room, and told what had happened. Down ftairs in an inftant hurried all the goflips, where they found the Doctor in a trance: Hungary-water, hartfhorn, and the confufed noife of fhrill voices, at length awakened him : when, opening his eyes, he faw the fhield in the hands of the house-maid. O woman! woman!" he cried, (and fnatched it violently from her)

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it to thy ignorance that this relick owes its ruin? Where, where is the "beautiful cruft that covered thee fo long? where thofe traces of time, and fingers as it were of antiquity? "Where all thofe beautiful obfcuri

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ties, the cause of much delightful difputation, where doubt and curio"fity went hand in hand, and eter

nally exercised the fpeculations of the "learned? And this the rude touch of an ignorant woman hath done away! "The curious prominence at the belly

of that figure, which fome, taking "for the culpis of a fword, denomi "nated a Roman foldier; others, ac. "counting the infignia virilia, pronounce to be one of the Dii Termini;

66

"behold

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