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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 LHKaf TSinclttir
 
 THE 
 
 HANDBOOK 
 
 THE MAN OF FASHION, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 ETIQUETTE FOR GENTLEMEN." 
 
 The forms, modes, shows, and uses of the world. 
 
 Shakspeare, 
 
 Neque enim levia aut ludicra petuntur 
 Praemia. 
 
 Virg. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON. 
 
 1847.
 
 Entered aca).ia»ng to the act of Congress, in the year 1839, 
 by Lea & Blanchard, in the clerk's office of the District 
 Court of the eastern district of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Printed by T. K. & P. G. Collins.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 3d 
 
 The object of this work is to instruct those 
 who have not been familiar with the world, in the 
 customs and usages of good society ; and to ex- 
 plain those principles of good-breeding which 
 every man should be 
 
 • Wax to receive and marble to retain.' 
 
 Of the regulations of etiquette, we willingly 
 say, ' Nos haec novimus esse nihil ;' they are 
 trifles ; they are nothing. But in human life, 
 trifles are often of immense importance ; and lit- 
 tle as these precepts may seem, an acquaintance 
 with them is perfectly indispensable. There is 
 indeed a class of men on earth, — that higher and 
 purer order of mortals, 
 
 Q,ueis arte benignae 
 Et meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan, — 
 
 whose virtue and genius will procure for them an 
 
 absolution from offences against usage ; nay, on 
 
 3 
 
 ISBARY
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 wiiom that ignorance sits gracefully. But an or- 
 dinary man can never gain that place in life for 
 which his talents and his merits fit him, unless 
 he is acquainted with that style of behaviour 
 which the world insists on observing. To gain 
 a thorough insight into this system, men must 
 doubtless see with their own eyes, and suffer in 
 their own persons ; but many valuable directions 
 may yet be communicated by precept. If we 
 cannot instruct the reader how to attain 
 
 ' The grace, so rare in every clime, 
 Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, 
 A finished gentleman from top to toe :' 
 
 we may at least inform him how to reach Ethere- 
 gi's notion of a passable gentleman, and be ' ever 
 well-dressed, always complaisant, and seldom 
 impertinent.*
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction 7 
 
 Personal Appearance and Apparel 13 
 
 General Manner 31 
 
 Certain Points of Good-Breeding 61 
 
 Behaviour on Particular Occasions 95 
 
 Conversation 115 
 
 Women: — Courtship and Marriage . 167 
 
 Morning Calls 193 
 
 Evening Visits 198 
 
 Receiving Company at Home 205 
 
 Amusements of a Gentleman , . 218 
 
 5
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To gain the good opinion of those who sur- 
 round them, is the first interest and the second 
 duty of men in every profession of life. For 
 power and for pleasure, this preliminary is equally 
 indispensable. Unless we are eminent and re- 
 spectable before our fellow-beings, we cannot 
 possess that influence which is essential to the 
 accomplishment of great designs ; and men have 
 so inherent, and one might almost say constitu- 
 tional, a disposition to refer all that they say and 
 do, to the thoughts and feelings of others, that 
 upon the tide of the world's opinion, floats the 
 complacency of every man. 
 
 This disposition is the guide and aliment of 
 almost all the passions that live in the breasts of 
 men. Ambition, — 'the glorious fault of angels 
 and of gods' — has its rise in an aspiration ' to 
 make their own, the minds of other men.' Ava- 
 7
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rice more often springs from a fear of falling un 
 der the contempt of the community, through pov 
 erty, than from a lust of treasure. And those 
 more plebeian moods of feeling, towards which 
 the minds of common persons are oftener swayed, 
 — as vanity, love, pride, — are but difiering forms 
 of this constant inclination. 
 
 To gain this notice and esteem, some are rely- 
 ing on intellect, and some on learning ; some are 
 expecting it as the result of political power, and 
 others are looking for it as the reward of patriotic 
 actions. It is thought by one class to be aided 
 by magnifying the antiquity and lustre of their 
 family ; while another imagines that it may be 
 won by personal haughtiness. But the most suc- 
 cessful of those who labour along those avenues 
 to regard, will have a toilsome struggle and a 
 doubtful triumph. A shorter, safer, and surer 
 road exists, than any of these uneasy paths dis- 
 play. Let a man make himself The fashion, 
 and he wins that treasure of opinion, for which 
 the works and wishes of the world are spent. 
 
 Fashion, like Sir Fopling Flutter, is a thing 
 '* not to be comprehended in a few words." Its 
 empire is one of the darkest mysteries of life ; and 
 8
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 we cannot pretend to explore its title or founda- 
 tion. It was a madman that asked " What is the 
 cause of thunder;" it was a fool to whom he put 
 the question ; and it was a knave that finally an- 
 swered it. The discussion of the causes of the 
 power of fashion might not be an invocation to 
 call into a circle precisely that assemblage of 
 characters: but still, on other grounds, pagan 
 and Christian, it were discreeter to abstain from 
 such a controversy. We should accept Fashion, 
 in the way that Sir Robert Peel accepted the Re- 
 form Bill, as a fact, — an actual and settled cir- 
 cumstance, in reference to which our views and 
 conduct must be regulated. 
 
 But while we do not presume to analyze this 
 power, we may be permitted to make what seems 
 to be the simplest statement of the condition of 
 things from which it springs. And that is, that 
 the minds of common men are not strong enough, 
 separately, to form opinions. Men must unite to 
 raise and sustain a thought, — to fabricate and up- 
 hold a judgment. Two or three hundred must 
 think together, in order to think at all. It is not 
 that persons exactly adopt their notions from 
 others ; each has a joint-stock interest in the sen- 
 B 9
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 timent to whose formation and support he is a 
 contributor; each is seized, joer my et per tout, of 
 common thought. When this operation displays 
 itself in professions and sects, and upon subjects 
 of permanent interest, it produces cant ,• when it 
 extends to lighter things and acts more vaguely, 
 it creates Fashion. 
 
 The influence of Fashion can hardly be over- 
 stated. It can give its favourites the fame of ge- 
 nius, learning, grace and virtue. It can cause the 
 flippancy of an idiot to pass for the brilliance of 
 Walpolian wit ; it can transmute the dronishness 
 of a dullard into a divine dignity. Without it, 
 the greatest general is a coated savage, and the 
 brightest author is a tedious bore. 
 
 Its might extends through every order, and 
 regulates the merit-roll of all the professions. It 
 settles the skill of physicians, and metes out the 
 sanctity of the clergy. 
 
 It is often won by accident, and often governed 
 by whim. It took up Dr. Fothergill because he 
 wore a hat whose rim was three inches broader 
 than that of anybody else. It smiled on Aber- 
 nethy because he expressed in two words, what 
 another would feel cramped to tell in ten. 
 10
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To such cases, no rule can be applied. To- 
 wards those points of the compass, we must imi- 
 tate Sylla, and build altars to Fortune. But as 
 far as that empire is controlled by reason and 
 may be understood by calculation, the easiest and 
 most certain way to favour, is by conciliating- 
 those who sit at the portals of the court of Fa- 
 shion, and to gain the liking and the voice of 
 those who are of her privy-council. That is to 
 be done by a course of conduct, towards which 
 some suggestions are offered by the present vol- 
 ume. It is to be done by dress, manner, and 
 tact of action. 
 
 For those who merely mean to enjoy life, — 
 whose ' trade and art is, to live,' — (and all men, 
 how far soever the circle of their days may lie 
 beyond that course, have, in their hours or mo- 
 ments, some points of tangence with that line of 
 purpose) — for those who seek only to sport in the 
 sunshine of pleasure, fashion is not only useful, 
 but absolutely indispensable. Whoever has in 
 heart any schemes of self-advancement or of pub- 
 lic benefit, will find the aid of this influence in- 
 calculably useful. Accordingly, whatever others 
 may have said about the art of life, we have no 
 11
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 hesitation in pronouncing it, the art of getting 
 into fashion. 
 
 But whatever may be the inducements to cul- 
 tivate fashion for its results of profit or enjoy- 
 ment, it is, in and for itself, a thing so greatly 
 valued and craved by every class of persons, that 
 the mode of winning it becomes an interesting 
 consideration to all men. Fashion is a large oc- 
 cupant of the thoughts of all the world. It en- 
 grosses more time and effort than Heaven itself. 
 The boy wonders and is terrified at it. It shares 
 with love the empire of the girlish breast. To 
 win it, some men make slaves of themselves, and 
 some, fools. There is not in existence a person 
 under thirty years, and not many of a greater age, 
 who would not rather be a man of fashion, than be 
 the most distinguished man of a distinguished age. 
 
 To gain the height of fashion is an easier thing 
 than to keep it. 
 
 Irreparably soon decline, alas I 
 The demagogues of fasliion. 
 
 It may be gained by accident; it cannot be kept 
 without the finest skill. The following pages 
 present some considerations which, for either pur- 
 pose, may not be wholly valueless. 
 12
 
 TITLE I. 
 
 OF THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE, 
 AND APPAREL. 
 
 Nothing exceeds in ridicule, no doubt, 
 A fool in fashion,— but a fool that 's out. 
 
 YoDNO. 
 
 The personal appearance is a matter of the first 
 concern. We see what a man is, before we see 
 what he does or says. 
 
 BufFon has remarked that a man's clothes are 
 a part of the individual, and enter into our idea 
 of the character. No man who is acquainted ex- 
 perimentally with the world, or who has reasoned 
 upon the progress of feeling, can regard the mat- 
 ter of dress as an unimportant consideration. So 
 intimately are the impressions of the senses con- 
 nected with the conclusions of the intellect, that 
 though we may dread, it is impossible to respect, 
 13
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 a person who dresses very negligently. The no- 
 tion which is formed of the interior qualities is 
 insensibly influenced by the exterior show. " We 
 must speak to the eyes," says Walpole, " if we 
 wish to affect the mind." 
 
 The personal appearance is particularly im- 
 portant where women are concerned ; for most of 
 them make it a rule to judge of character by the 
 first impression. Good dressing is as important 
 m courtship as in cookery. 
 
 In paying a visit, or seeking the company of 
 any one upon foreknowledge, it is manifestly a 
 compliment to be well-dressed, and an insult to 
 be slovenly. But even in a casual encounter, and 
 upon occasions where your habit can have no con- 
 nexion with the feelings and sentiments which 
 you have towards those whom you meet, neat 
 and careful dressing will bring great advantage 
 to you. A negligent guise shows a man to be 
 satisfied with his own resources, engrossed with 
 his own notions and schemes, indifierent to the 
 14
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 opinion of others, and not looking abroad fo" en- 
 tertainment : to such a man no one feels encour- 
 aged to make any advances. A jflnished dress 
 indicates a man of the world, one who looks for, 
 and habitually finds, pleasure in society and con- 
 versation, and who is at all times ready to mingle 
 in intercourse with those whom he meets with ; 
 it is a kind of general offer of acquaintance, and 
 proves a willingness to be spoken to. Dress is 
 the livery of good society ; and, all the world 
 over, no one can get practice in his profession 
 who does not wear the badge of his calling. 
 
 Dress is a thing very significant of invi^ard 
 feeling, and very operative upon outward conduct. 
 That courtier was in the right, who dated the 
 commencement of the French Revolution from 
 the day when a nobleman appeared at Versailles 
 without buckles in his shoes. The early insti- 
 tutors of the Society of Friends displayed con- 
 summate wisdom in providing for the perpetual 
 separation of their sect by the distinction of dress. 
 15
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE, 
 
 It is in this way that military companies keep tip 
 ^he esprit de corps: and the badge which distin- 
 guishes associations and parties is a witness of 
 the principle. The peculiar dresses anciently 
 ^A'orn by physcians, lawyers, &c., deepened the 
 limits of professional difference, and doubtless 
 quickened professional devotion. Whoever en- 
 ters society will find that a fashionable attire will 
 unite and fraternize him with people of the world 
 more strongly and completely than any other 
 thing ; and it will be a constant monitor to re- 
 mind him to act worthy of his vocation of court- 
 liness. There was much philosophy in the rea- 
 son given by Mr. More, of Norwich, one of the 
 worthiest divines of the reign of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, for wearing the longest beard of his time, 
 namely, " that no act of his life might be unwor- 
 thy of the gravity of his appearance." 
 
 A man of sense, as well as a man of the world, 
 will always dress in the fashion. If there were 
 any style of attire which could be called natural 
 16
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 and rational, a wise man might be pardoned for 
 deviating from custom to reach it : but he who 
 leaves what is fashionable now, must adopt what 
 was fashionable once, and not a whit more rea- 
 sonable than that which is in vogue, or he must 
 invent a manner which cannot have anything else 
 to recommend it than that it differs from the 
 usage. On that point, the language of Dr. Young 
 is the language of good sense : 
 
 Though wrong the mode, comply ; more sense is shown 
 In wearing others' follies than your own. 
 
 Among trivial matterr., nothing, perhaps, more 
 often distinguishes a gentleman from a plebeian, 
 than the wearing of gloves. A gentleman has 
 worn them so constantly from his earliest years, 
 that he feels uncomfortably without them in the 
 street, and he never suffers his hands to be bare 
 for a moment; a vulgar person, on the con- 
 trary, finds himself incommoded by a warmth 
 and confinement to which he is unaccustomed, 
 and even if, in compliance with usage, he has
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 supplied himself with what he deems unworthy 
 of the expense, he will do no more than swing 
 them between his fingers, or wrap them around 
 his thumb. It is not enough that you carry 
 gloves, you should wear them. It is a very com- 
 mon thing to see young men, parading upon some 
 place of public promenade, expensively and even 
 genteelly dressed, having canes, rings, &c., — but 
 without gloves. The ungloved hand is the clo- 
 ven foot of their vulgarity. 
 
 When you are going out to walk, you should 
 draw on your gloves, and make all the other ad- 
 justments in your attire, before you open the 
 street-door. It is offensive to see a man dressing 
 himself in the street. 
 
 In full-dress evening company, white or yellow 
 gloves should be worn, but should be taken off 
 in eating. But at a small evening party of thirty 
 or forty persons, which is necessarily a half-dress 
 occasion, it is more proper to wear dark gloves 
 
 than white ones. 
 
 1«
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 It is offensive to offer a gloved hand to a per- 
 son, unless he, too, is gloved. If two persons 
 meet one another and both have their gloves on, 
 they should shake hands without removing them ; 
 men unfamiliar with the world often withdraw 
 the glove on such an occasion, not considering 
 that equality of position is the only thing to be 
 desired. But if one draws off his glove, it would 
 be the grossest rudeness for the other to retain his. 
 As it is troublesome to be compelled to unglove, 
 if you, having your glove off, salute one who has 
 his glove on, you should not offer him your hand. 
 The ceremony of shaking hands should, like 
 every other that a gentleman performs, be done 
 with deliberation and composure ; if, therefore, 
 there occur to yourself or the other party, any 
 delay on an occasion of this sort, you should wait 
 without embarrassment or agitation, and quietly 
 offer or receive the hand whenever it is prepared. 
 In paying a morning visit, have one glove off, or 
 partly off, in entering ; for you may meet some 
 19
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 gentleman of the family, with whom it would be 
 necessary to exchange the hand. 
 
 In receiving company in one's own house, ons 
 should not be much dressed. A man should noX 
 wear gloves ; not only because it is senseless and 
 unmeaning, seeing that men, unlike women, only 
 wear them abroad, but also because if any of the 
 company had forgotten that part of his apparel, 
 the gloves of his host would make him feel awk- 
 wardly. 
 
 At a morning visit, a frock-coat may be worn, 
 and a cane, which together with the hat must be 
 taken into the room and retained in the hand. 
 The hour after which dress becomes indispensa- 
 ble, begins with dinner. 
 
 When you lay down your hat in a room, or on 
 a bench in a public place, you should put the 
 open part downwards, so that the leather which 
 has been soiled by the hair, may not be seen. 
 
 Small articles for which there may be use, as 
 a pencil-case, or card-case, should be carried in 
 20
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 the waistcoat pocket. Nothing should be carried 
 in the pockets of the pantaloons, as it is extremely 
 inelegant to thrust the hand into them. In com- 
 pany, as little as possible should be borne in 
 pockets of the coat; indeed, a full-dress coat 
 should be made without pockets. t 
 
 Little distinction can be gained in this country 
 by the fashion of the dress. So universal, among 
 the lowest classes, is the habit of extravagant 
 expenditure, and so unlimited is the reach of their 
 rivalry, that a gentleman can scarcely show him- 
 self twice in a peculiar costume, without ensuring 
 that his third appearance shall be matched by 
 every apprentice and club-boy in town. The 
 meeting of two gentlemen in the lobby of the 
 play-house, illustrates the similarity of dress 
 which now pervades all orders. Coming from 
 different parts of the building in haste, one ac- 
 costed the other with " Pray, are you the box- 
 keeper r' " No," replied the other ; " are you 1" 
 
 A three-days' distinction may however be at- 
 21
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 tained, by being the first to adopt what will soon 
 become general. To " set a fashion" in London 
 or Paris is what none but a most aspiring genius 
 could undertake, or a person of great eminence 
 accomplish. But in this country, the thing is 
 easy. The style of men's dress, here, is the Lon- 
 don style of two years before, and whoever will 
 copy Regent street before its inventions have be- 
 come absolutely vulgar, w^ill anticipate Broadway 
 and Chestnut street by some time. 
 
 Splendid dressing is not becoming in a great 
 man. The contrast which usually existed be- 
 tween the habiliments of Napoleon and those of 
 his generals and marshals, was strikingly honour- 
 able to the former. On the other hand, a man 
 should not dress negligently unless he is a great 
 man. A poor man should dress well ; a rich man 
 can afford to dress meanly. One of the greatest 
 advantages of rank is that it permits us to asso- 
 ciate with whomsoever we please ; and of wealth, 
 that it allows us to live as humbly as we like. 
 22
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE 
 
 You should not carry to your toilet all the 
 
 mental absence of the learned Dr. , and put 
 
 on fresh garments without taking off the former 
 ones. It is related by the biographer of Sir 
 Humphry Davy, that that distinguished philo- 
 sopher would often appear before his class with 
 1^0 less than seven shirts on, and as many pairs 
 cf stockings ; an accumulation effected by sim- 
 ply violatmg the rule of the old song, " 'Tis well 
 to be off with the old — shirt. Before we have on 
 with the new." His friends were constantly 
 called upon to wonder at the extraordinary varia- 
 tions which his bulk was undergoing ; his limbs 
 at one time being extremely thin, and in the next 
 week vyeing with the proportions of Daniel Lam- 
 bert. 
 
 Seal-rings are, at this day, never worn by peo- 
 ple of ton. You see them often upon the fingers 
 of second or third rate people ; but gentlemen 
 have wholly abandoned their use. Sometimes a 
 23
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCR. 
 
 plain gold ring is worn by men of condition, but 
 nothing beyond that. 
 
 At a dance or large evening party, a chapeaii 
 bras is appropriate and elegant ; but to carry a 
 common hat on such occasions, as is done by 
 some awkward imitators of fashion, is clumsy 
 and absurd. 
 
 If uniformity of manner is tiresome, an unva- 
 rying dress is still more so. There should be an 
 adaptation of the costume to the occasion, sea- 
 son, place and hour. There should be a harmony 
 between the stiffness of the coat and of the com- 
 pany ; a buckram'd collar at a pic-nic would be 
 as much out of place as starchless linen in a 
 drawing-room. Old Elwes, the miser, who was 
 for many years a member of parliament, wore the 
 same unchanging dress at the Speaker's dinners 
 and at those of the opposition, and in a short 
 time every eye had become familiar with it. T* e 
 wits of the minority used to say, " that they W-J 
 full as much reason as the minister to be satisft* A 
 24
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 with Mr. Elwes, as he had the same habit with 
 everybody." 
 
 You should never present yourself at a large 
 evening party without having your hair dressed 
 and curled. Nothing so decidedly gives a dressed 
 air to the figure as well-arranged hair ; and with- 
 out it, the best and most elegant apparel misses 
 its effect. The chin should also be very newly 
 reaped. We often meet young men in society, 
 whose beards, if they are not so long as that of 
 John Mayo, the painter of Charles V., who could 
 tread upon it as he stood erect, and who gene- 
 rally fastened it by a riband to his button-hole, 
 nor so wild as that of the Snowdoun bard, whose 
 hair " streamed like a meteor to the troubled air," 
 are yet negligent enough to display a very offen- 
 sive degree of carelessness. To all applications 
 on the part of such persons to be admitted into 
 company, society should return the same answer 
 which the Chapter of Clermont gave to William 
 Duprat. 
 
 D 23
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 Before we state what was the answer which 
 the Chapter of Clermont gave to William Du- 
 prat, we must premise that beards of great length 
 had at one period come into fashion in France, 
 and especially among the clergy ; and in conse- 
 quence of this, capitular statutes were framed in 
 some of the French cathedrals against an orna- 
 ment that savoured so much of vanity and world- 
 liness. The eminent prelate whom we have 
 named, after distinguishing himself at the Coun- 
 cil of Trent, was made bishop of Clermont. He 
 had cherished for years a full and flowing beard, 
 which he valued at a Pope's ransom. When the 
 period of his induction had arrived, he went in 
 state to take possession of his cathedral, but 
 found to his astonishment that the gates of the 
 chancel were shut against him, and through the 
 lattice-work he perceived three members of the 
 chapter waiting to receive him in a manner not 
 the most gratifying to his pride. One of the trio 
 held in his hand a razor, another a pair of scis- 
 26
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 sors, and a third the book of statutes of the 
 church of Clermont, opened at these words — 
 " de harhis rasis.^^ The bishop remonstrated with 
 earnestness, and observed, that though he should 
 be willing to comply with the statutes, yet the 
 sanctity of the Sabbath ought to dispense with 
 the operation for the present. But all that he 
 could urge availed him nothing. The answer 
 that the canons still returned to him was, " Be 
 
 SHAVED, OR STAY OUT ! " 
 
 A prudent man, when he buys a new coat, will 
 always get one of a different colour from his last 
 one. If he bought a new one of the same colour, 
 he would get no credit for it, — except on the 
 books of his tailor. 
 
 Some persons adopt with very good effect a 
 style of costume which Walpole calls a " puff- 
 dress," consisting in an apparel so much beneath 
 decency as to excite attention and gain notoriety. 
 When well sustained, it is a trick that takes well 
 with the mob. A distinguished general in the 
 27
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 British army, in the last century, is reported to 
 have dressed habitually in a very fantastic man- 
 ner, in order, as he sometimes told his intimates, 
 that when people inquired, " Who is that old 
 fool, dressed in such a ridiculous style 1" his 
 friends might reply, "That is the famous Gene- 
 ral , vi'ho took such a place during the last 
 
 war ; a man of infinite valour !" 
 
 Fashion in dress has been wittily and pretty 
 truly defined " a shift to which tailors resort to 
 make men get new clothes before their old ones 
 are worn out." Those who are leaders in the 
 gay world and have sense enough to value eco- 
 nomy in expenditure, are often behind the exam- 
 ple of people of less ton, who have not courage 
 enough to resist the institutes of their trades- 
 men ; and the former often struggle to retard the 
 entrance of a new fashion, until their coats are 
 ready to be laid aside. Before getting new 
 clothes you should enquire whether any new 
 fashions are likely soon to come up, and you 
 28
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 
 
 should judge whether such fashions will proba- 
 bly be rapidly adopted, and if the matter be 
 doubtful you should wait a little while till you 
 can determine more easily. Always have your 
 coat made fully in the mode, if not a touch be- 
 yond it ; for that will not cost you a whit more 
 than a plain coat, while it carries to the eye an 
 appearance of more expense. 
 
 It is becoming usual to wear the hair long and 
 curled behind, and this will increase till we shall 
 rival the custom of two centuries since. When 
 perruques first came into France, men fond of 
 dress, and very choice and costly in that article, 
 were often seen parading the open streets with 
 their hats in their hands, for fear of disturbing 
 the architecture of their curls. If the fashion 
 goes much farther in this country, we shall be 
 compelled to adopt a similar plan. 
 
 29
 
 TITLE II. 
 OF THE GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 Few to good-breeding make a just pretence; 
 Good-breeding is the blossom of good sense : 
 The last result of an accomplish'd mind, 
 With outward grace, the body's virtue, join'd. 
 
 Young. 
 
 There is a good-breeding of the mind and 
 heart, and a good-breeding of the behaviour and 
 conduct. All of the former is instinctive ; most 
 of the latter is conventional. The one inspires 
 our sentiments and informs our thoughts ; the 
 other regulates our manner and suggests our 
 action. 
 
 The good-breeding of which we at present 
 
 speak, is, in some sort, natural ; yet it does not 
 
 follow that it comes by gaping. There are many 
 
 plants which are as genuine as the herb of the 
 
 31
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 desert, and yet will not flourish save in the rich- 
 est soil and under the extremest culture. In 
 every profession, especially in its highest and 
 most interior regions, there is found prevailing 
 a contrived system of principles which control 
 opinion and are the standard of judgment: but 
 when this system is examined and tried, it is 
 found to be the best and truest expression of na- 
 ture. When Lord Coke assures his readers that 
 the Common Law is the perfection of reason, he 
 takes care to tell them that it is not derived from 
 the sense of common men, but is " the artificial 
 perfection of reason," which has been fined and 
 refined by the ingenuity of an infinite number of 
 wise and grave men. In like manner the ele- 
 vated sentiments and principles of honour which 
 pervade the breasts of high-bred men are purified 
 and filtrated to that degree of clearness, that 
 when first presented to the mind they occur to it 
 as artificial. 
 Good-breeding is like religion ; it is sanc- 
 33
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 tioned, but not suggested, by nature. The 
 promptings of nature are all selfish ; the princi- 
 ples of good-breeding are founded in generosity 
 We must educate ourselves into those feelings 
 which teach iis to consult the welfare and comfort 
 of others, and to bow ourselves to the restraints 
 of honour. It is only by discipline and effort 
 that we can attain to that elevation of character. 
 But high as the result may be, it is always obe- 
 dient to those endeavours ; and every man may 
 take home to himself the assurance that time 
 and toil will enable him to reach the last and 
 loftiest conclusions in that department. The 
 transmutation of the ignoble aims and notions of 
 the nursery into the chivalrous air and aspirations 
 of a gentleman, is as wide, yet as practicable, as 
 the change from the savageness of Kamskatka 
 to the elegant luxuriance of Circassia; in either 
 case, the progress is by steps. With time and 
 patience, says an Eastern proverb, the leaf of 
 the mulberry-tree becomes satin. 
 E 33
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 '* 'f^ true, there is a class of mortals, upon 
 whose mental birth the Graces have not smiled ; 
 and who seem to be hopeless subjects of this 
 art. They are the non-elect of courtliness. After 
 every effort they must at last be abandoned to a 
 reprobate manner. There is truth in the saying-, 
 " Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius." There 
 are many natural faculties of the mind that have 
 never been named ; and arhong them is the sense 
 of delicacy in action. M. Rohault was one day 
 endeavouring to convey to a blind man a notion 
 of light. After a long explanation, " Stop," said 
 the blind man : " I understand you now ; is not 
 light made of the same substance as sugar?" — 
 It is equally difficult to give some men notions 
 of refinement. , 
 
 There are certain sentiments of inherent ex- 
 cellence which should be deeply lodged in the 
 mmd, and become the fond on which the lighter 
 graces of mode may be afterwards woven. And 
 what are the qualities that are thus fundamental ? 
 3i
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 ... In a noble discourse " On Diligence 'n our 
 calling- as Gentlemen," Dr. Barrow, who there 
 presents us with the finest definition and most 
 complete and eloquent picture that was ever 
 given of a gentleman,* pronounces the most es- 
 sential attributes of the character he would extol, 
 to be Courtesy and Courage ; " which he that 
 wanteth, is not otherwise than equivocally a gen- 
 tleman, as an image or carkase is a man; with- 
 out which, gentility in a conspicuous degree is 
 no more than a vain show and empty name." If 
 between these virtues, of which the former 
 teaches us what is due to our fellows, and the 
 
 * It is certainly an exalted tribute to the merits of the 
 character which we seek to recommend, that this illustrious 
 prelate should deem that no fairer or fuller exhibition of the 
 perfection of Christian qualities could be furnished than by 
 a selection of the several models of gentlemanliness pre- 
 sented by the history before him. He exhorts his audience 
 to emulate the example of " those noMe gentlemen, Abra- 
 ham and Lot," in being hospitable; of " that brave gentle- 
 man, Moses," in spreading peace and good order, and of 
 "divers gallant gentlemen, Joseph, Samuel, Daniel, Morde- 
 cay" and others in being patriotic. 
 
 35
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 latter tells us what is due to our station, we in- 
 sert Dignity, which will inform us of what is 
 due to ourselves, we shall complete the triple 
 tiara which crowns as infallible the character of 
 a gentleman. 
 
 Courtesy is a habit of which the cultivation 
 is recommended by the weightiest and most nu- 
 merous motives. We are led to it by the gene- 
 rous purpose of advancing the happiness of 
 others, and the more personal one of making 
 ourselves liked and courted. When we see how 
 the demagogue is driven to affect it, we learn 
 how valuable the reality will be to us. " It is 
 like grace and beauty," says Montaigne ; " it 
 begets regard and an inclination to love one at 
 the first sight, and in the very beginning of an 
 acquaintance." There is something, too, which 
 all admit to be eminently respectable in the prac- 
 tice of unfailing courtesy ; and in favour of such 
 a man, an esteem which is the abiding growth 
 of judgment, will be engrafted on the first in- 
 36
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 stinctive liking. A hasty glance around any cir- 
 cle of society, will discover many who, of tne 
 respect and affection of their fellows, are tenants 
 by the courtesy of their conduct. 
 
 A man's pride should dwell in his principles 
 and not in his demeanour. He should be above 
 thinking anything which may be unworthy of 
 his nature, and above doing anything which may 
 lessen his character or impair his honour; but 
 he should not be above illustrating his rank 
 and breeding by gentleness and kindness. Boi- 
 leau has observed with admirable truth and ele- 
 gance, that pride of mind is the characteristic 
 of men of honour ; but that pride of air and 
 manner is the certain mark of fools. This is 
 well understood in those countries where life has 
 attained its best refinement and its truest footing; 
 and whoever will make trial of society abroad, 
 will find that the higher he ascends in rank, the 
 more bland and kindly the manner becomes. 
 Among people of the same standing, suavity is 
 87
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 in proportion to sense ; among those of equal 
 sense, it is in proportion to the standing. Haxi- 
 teur invariably indicates a man who in imagina- 
 tion raises himself to a higher platform than that 
 on which he really exists ; and such a habit is 
 utterly inconsistent with sincere greatness. It is 
 plain to a glance that arrogance and incivility 
 can never be the test of good-breeding ; for that 
 is a display in which the roughest and most 
 violent will always vanquish the refined, — nay, 
 which would place the rudest clown above the 
 highest duke. 
 
 Contempt and haughtiness are never wise and 
 never politic. Pride is a losing game, play it 
 with whom you please. Courtesy is the only 
 way to deal with the courteous, and the best way 
 to deal with the rude. " There is nothing, so 
 'savage and uncouth," remarked De Grammont, 
 " that a little care, attention, and complaisance 
 will not tame it into civility." 
 
 In dealing with men in the haunts of busi 
 38
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 ness, suspect them as much as you please, and 
 bully them as much as you dare ; but in meeting 
 them in society, give them credit for every vir- 
 tue, and weed from your mind every thought that 
 derogates from the dignity of life. The maxims 
 of Rochefoucauld are true, everywhere ; but we 
 should degenerate into the wildness of beasts if 
 we practised them in the drawing-room. Let us 
 admit them where we must, and escape from 
 them when we can. In our proceedings as traf- 
 fickers or as politicians, we may cultivate cun- 
 ning as far as may be expedient; but in our 
 intercourse as gentlemen we should aspire to 
 " that candid greatness of mind, which is above 
 fear, and above suspicion ; which thinks well, 
 even too well, of others, because conscious of no 
 depraving weakness, no habit of detraction or 
 misconstruction in itself." 
 
 Many persons, not very familiar with the 
 world or not endowed with very strong under- 
 39
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 Standing, apply themselves with the best possi- 
 ble intentions to fulfil what they suppose to be 
 good-breeding, and become precise and etiquettish 
 to an intolerable degree. Supposing that cour- 
 tesy consists in what is done to others, rather 
 than in the manner in which it is done, they play 
 off upon them all the formalities of respect which 
 they can contrive or remember ; and thus become 
 tiresome and annoying beyond endurance. That 
 jeligious exactitude of manner may in form and 
 origin be not very distant from the courtesy 
 which we commend ; but its effect is directly 
 opposite ; the one being as tedious as the other 
 is delightful. " Nothing," says St. Evremond, 
 ' is more honourable and pleasant than civility, 
 cind nothing more ridiculous and burthensome 
 ihan ceremony. Civility teaches us to behave 
 with proportionate respect to every body, accord- 
 mg as their rank requires and their merit de- 
 ii lands. In other words, civility is the science 
 tf men of the world. A person of good address, 
 40
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 who conducts himself with due circumspection, 
 conciliates the love and esteem of society, be- 
 cause every one finds himself easy in his com- 
 pany ; but a ceremonious man is the plague of 
 all his acquaintance. Such a one displays and 
 requires too much attention to be a pleasant asso- 
 ciate ; is too seldom satisfied with what is paid 
 him, and every moment feels his pride hurt oy 
 the want of some frivolous etiquette. Ceremony 
 was invented by pride, to harass men with pue- 
 rile solicitudes which they should blush to be 
 conversant with." 
 
 The " rudeness which springs from being over- 
 civil," as Montaigne calls it, is the natural fault 
 of those who have acquired their manners from 
 theory rather than usage. It affects those who 
 live much alone and mingle seldom with the 
 world. The same reason explains the truth of 
 Count Hamilton's remark, that " ceremony, car- 
 ried beyond all bearing, is the grand character- 
 F 41
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 istick of country gentry." How often do wo 
 meet high-born dowagers of the last age, 
 
 Who, through good-breeding, are ill company; 
 Whose manners will not let their 'larum cease, 
 Who think you are unhappy when at peace. 
 
 Courtesy, however noble a quality it is, should 
 never extend beyond the limits of dignity. We 
 must not make ourselves contemptible, to make 
 others comfortable. Courtesy is most safe when 
 confined to manner ; when it extends to action, 
 it is apt either to prove an impertinence, or to be 
 mistaken for sycophancy. To wait till a favour 
 is asked for and then to grant it to the required 
 extent, excites a sounder gratitude, than to anti- 
 cipate or outrun one's wants. Those who have 
 seen much of the world, will think that there is 
 some truth in Lady Graveair's complaint, that 
 " the more people strive to oblige people, the less 
 they are thank'd for it." In society there are 
 many persons, amongst the thoughtless or inso- 
 lent, who will take liberties with one who does 
 42
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 not sometimes act upon the defensive : to such it 
 is necessary occasionally to show frigidness or 
 indifference. Nay, there are those, especially 
 among the low-born English who often find their 
 way into good company in this country, whom it 
 is necessary to treat with rudeness, if you would 
 have them acknowledge your just claims. 
 
 Courage is a quality without which courtesy 
 becomes despicable and dignity ridiculous. It 
 lies not merely in a contempt of danger and an 
 indifference to hardship ; it includes a boldness 
 of heart to attempt everything that is honourable, 
 and a stoutness of temper to endure everything 
 in support of what is right. To pursue, instantly, 
 the suggestion of an honest wish, and to stand 
 firmly by the conclusions of a sound judgment, 
 should be the resolution of every reasonable man. 
 That was a noble motto which Marigny read 
 upon some ancient swords at Bombora in Cir- 
 cassia, which were probably relics of the cru- 
 sades : " Ne me tire pas sans raison, et ne me 
 43
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 remets pas sans honneur." To yearn for what 
 we dare not reach, or to approve what we dare 
 not defend, is a condition of mind to which the 
 bitterest hater might exult to reduce his foe. 
 Courage, says Barrow, is not seen in a flaunting 
 garb, or strutting deportment ; nor in hectorly, 
 ruffian-like swaggering or huffing; nor in high 
 looks or big words ; but in stout and gallant 
 deeds, employing vigour of mind and heart to 
 achieve them. 
 
 We have thus very briefly named the promi- 
 nent properties which every gentleman should 
 endeavour to attach to his character. Having 
 resolved that no man shall charge a rudeness 
 upon him, and no man take an undue familiarity 
 with him, let him proceed in the fulfilment of his 
 duty, " unawed by menace, regardless of strata- 
 gem, and dreading no consequence but that of a 
 seared conscience." 
 
 One of the first requisites for success and hap- 
 piness in any pursuit, is to respect the profession 
 44
 
 GENERAL MANNER 
 
 which you have undertaken, — to be persuaded 
 that it is worthy of your best powers, and that 
 your best attention must be applied to its duties. 
 Pride is the refuge in which cowardice often con- 
 ceals itself. Many labour to persuade themselves 
 that success in society is beneath their ambition, 
 when they more sincerely think that it is beyond 
 their power. Both conclusions are false ; but the 
 former, besides, is foolish. Let a man assure 
 himself, first, that success is worth labouring for, 
 and then that it is capable of being gained by 
 labour. Let him never go into society with a 
 lazy or droning mind. The intellect must be 
 excited and strained, and then it will do great 
 things. " Cogenda mens est, ut incipiat," says 
 Seneca. Constraint of mind is necessary to its 
 fair and proper action. 
 
 It is certainly a great error to despise the parts 
 
 of those who are leaders in fashion, however 
 
 frivolous the practices of that empire may be 
 
 deemed. Success in any profession that has 
 
 45
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 many unsuccessful candidates, proves ability of 
 some sort. If it be not in the understanding, it 
 may reside in the temper ; and if not in the fine- 
 ness of the temper, then its audacity. The Duke 
 of Mantua remarked to Cardinal Du Perron that 
 a jester he retained in his service, M^as a fellow 
 of no wit : " Your Grace must pardon me," re- 
 plied the Cardinal ; " I think he must have a 
 great deal of wit, who can live by a trade he 
 does not understand." If a man is a notorious 
 fool in conversation, he must possess uncommon 
 talent in action, to place himself, with that de- 
 ficiency, at the head of fashion. 
 
 Absence of mind should be most carefully 
 shunned, both in conversation and action. In the 
 former it makes a man odious ; in the latter, ridi- 
 culous. Through this defect, an amiable and 
 well-meaning man is often led to inflict great 
 pain and produce unpleasant predicaments, by 
 acts and allusions which wound the tenderest or 
 the sorest feelings. La Fontaine was the most 
 46
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 complete professor of this species of awkvvard- 
 less, that modern times have known. He once 
 attended the funeral of a gentleman, and called 
 the next day to enquire how he did. Walpole 
 lells a story of a clergyman at Oxford in his 
 lays, who was generally very distrait. As he 
 *A'as going one day to read prayers, he heard a 
 showman in the High street, who had a collec- 
 tion of wild beasts, say frequently, " Walk in 
 \vithout loss of time. All alive ! alive ! Ho ! " 
 Che sounds were running in his head, after he 
 liad reached the reading-desk, and when he came 
 ■-o the words in the opening of the service, " and 
 ioeth that which is lawful and right, he shall 
 save his soul alive," he called out with a loud 
 voice, to the amazement of his congregation, 
 "shall save his soul alive ! all alive ! ho ! " 
 
 A man should make it a point to avoid all sin- 
 gularity of manner. Unconscious eccentricity is 
 ?. defect which every one should labour to over- 
 come ; and every voluntary attempt to deviate 
 47
 
 GENERAL MANNER, 
 
 from the usual manner of doing ordinary acts, is 
 a foible unworthy of a man of sense. In con- 
 duct and in speech, the rule of good sense, sa5'^s 
 Lord Brougham, is to do common things in the 
 common way. For another reason than good 
 taste, it should be shunned by a man of the 
 world. All singularity of sentiment or conduct 
 dissociates man from man, and repels and is 
 repelled. 
 
 In almost every profession it will be found that 
 the last perfection of art approaches to the first 
 directness and simplicity of nature. It is so with 
 manner. From the direct style of the cottage, 
 you advance to the fussy manner of the tenth- 
 rate cit; in abetter atmosphere, you meet formal, 
 ostentatious, laborious or conciliating manners, 
 till in the regions of the highest refinement you 
 again fall in with the calm and natural. As 
 Plautus says, Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil 
 olet, no perfume is the best perfume, so the best 
 48
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 manner is that which is the plainest and most 
 simple. 
 
 A young man, during the first years of his 
 entrance into company, should direct his eflforts 
 and attention chiefly to women. Among them 
 he should spend his time, and with them should 
 become as familiar as possible. It is by intimate 
 society with accomplished women, that men be- 
 come accomplished. Polished women are like 
 the loadstone, which not only attracts the steel 
 which comes near, but imparts to it, its own 
 attractive power. Men, like chameleons, take 
 their hue from what they lie on. We catch from 
 their spirit, by a sort of magnetic communica- 
 tion, " those nameless graces which no methods 
 teach." 
 
 For prevailing with people, one must be con- 
 tinual and persevering. What cannot be taken 
 by storm, will yield to constancy. Celio Calcag- 
 nini, a Ferrarese, entitled an essay wh.ch he 
 wrote on the life of courtiers, "A treatise co pa- 
 G 49
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 lience." Frequent, extremely, those whom yoti 
 would win. Use and habituation have a vast 
 deal to do with liking. Apuleius, in his tale of 
 Psyche, has wisely introduced Custom into the 
 train of Venus, as one of the ministers of love. 
 Your much presence creates the necessity of 
 your continued presence, and there will be a 
 sense of vacuity when you are gone. In friend- 
 ship, the statute of limitations is narrow. 
 
 In society, a clergyman should carry his order, 
 as he does his title, as a prefix ; others should 
 carry their profession, as they do their descrip- 
 tion, behind them. 
 
 The qualities which are requisite to adorn the 
 character of a gentleman, are well summed up in 
 the description which is given of a pleader in the 
 Assizes of Jerusalem, written in the eleventh 
 century. " II convient a celui qui est bon plei- 
 doir et soutill, que il ne soit doutif, ne esbay, ne 
 hontous, ne hatif, ne nonchaillant." "A good 
 pleader," says that quaint authority, " should be 
 50
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 exempt from the faults of indecision, timidity, 
 false shame, haste, and nonchalance." 
 
 It is well remarked by Southey, that if easy 
 and graceful manners are not acquired in early 
 life, they will scarcely ever be possessed at all. 
 The sooner a person makes himself familiar with 
 society, the more thoroughly and readily he will 
 gain a good style. Those who are not conversant 
 with the drawing-room in youth, form such ex- 
 aggerated notions of the awfulness of company, 
 as hang by them and embarrass them for the rest 
 of their lives. Then, too, the mind is ductile, 
 and the form is pliant, to receive the impressions 
 of sentiment and manner, which good-breeding 
 offers. 
 
 Udum, et molle lutum est ; nunc, nunc, properandus, et acri 
 Fingendus sine fine rota. 
 
 Pers. 
 
 It must not be denied that to all men, and to 
 
 the young peculiarly, society is full of dangers. 
 
 The pleasures which it holds out, must be tasted 
 
 with the utmost temperance and control, if they 
 
 51
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 would not be found fatal. But what condition 
 of life can be suggested which is not perilous to 
 virtue"! . . If we shut up ourselves in solitude, 
 we violate the most earnest and feeling injunc- 
 tions of the moralists from Bacon to Johnson- 
 When alone, man is left to strive 
 
 With demons, who impair 
 The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey 
 In melancholy bosoms.* 
 
 If we might on this occasion, reverentially, 
 employ the divine language, we would say that 
 our effort should be not to take ourselves from 
 the world, but to keep ourselves from the evil 
 that is in the world. With bit of firmest steel, 
 let us snaffle the passions that would drag the 
 car of life down the precipice of moral ruin. 
 Let Reason be sovereign, and not suffragan, of 
 
 *The note of Lord Byron on this passage is remarkable. 
 "The struggle is to the full as likely to be with demons as 
 with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness foi 
 the temptation of our Saviour. And our unsullied John 
 Locke preferred the presence of a child to mere solitude.'* 
 
 52
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 Temptation. Let us, at the outset, link our be- 
 ing to the shore of virtue, by cables of the stern- 
 est toughness, and daily re-fix the ligature, and 
 we may then trust ourselves to float upon the 
 stream. The wreck of him that is drowned in 
 pleasure is the most complete and mournful of 
 any that is cast upon the strand of existence. 
 The picture which is given by Burnet of the 
 latter days of the Duke of Buckingham, so long 
 *' the life of pleasure and the soul of whim," is 
 one of the most melancholy that history contains, 
 and is a fit pendant to Pope's impressive portrait 
 of his end. " He at length," says that coarse but 
 faithful painter,* " rained both body and mind, 
 fortune and reputation equally. The madness of 
 vice appeared in his person in very eminent in- 
 stances ; since at last he became contemptible 
 and poor, sickly and sunk in his parts, as well as 
 tn other respects ; so that his conversation was 
 as much avoided as ever it had been courted." 
 
 * History of his own Times. I. 137. 
 53
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 He who has resolved to mingle gaily in the 
 delights of society should be convinced that there 
 IS scarcely a single enjoyment of the senses 
 which is not attended by some penalty, and that 
 each of the careless pleasures that he wobs is 
 the parent of some serious woe. * " Our plea- 
 sant vices are but whips to scourge us." — " The 
 greatest part of pleasures," says Montaigne, 
 " wheedle and caress only to strangle us ; like 
 those thieves the Egyptians called Philiste. If 
 the headache should come before drunkenness, 
 we should have a care of drinking too much : but 
 Pleasure, to deceive us, marches before and con- 
 ceals her train." 
 
 And not merely the end, but the existence of 
 those who in the " noon-tide ray" of fashion 
 
 * A powerful,— one might almost say, a tremendous,— pic- 
 ture of the results of a life of pleasure is given in Dr. 
 Young's Centaur not Fabulous. That work should be re« 
 printed every lustrum, and disseminated through every me- 
 tropolis that understands the language in which it is written. 
 
 54
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 Display their gaily-gilded trim 
 Q,uick-glancing to the sun, 
 
 is often wretched enough. The glad in counte- 
 nance and the gay in conduct, are many times 
 secretly the most unhappy of men. The glitter 
 and racket of the fashionable world cover much 
 that is miserable. Melancthon used to compare 
 a court-life to books of tragedies, which on the 
 outside are adorned with gold and purple bmd- 
 ings, but witliin contain tales of distress.* 
 
 In the gay world, ridicule is the thing most 
 carefully to be shunned ; both as being the fate 
 most easily there incurred, and as being the most 
 severe penalty of that government. 
 
 All fools have still an itching to deride, 
 And fain would be upon the laughing side. 
 
 Every one seeks an opportunity to laugh at 
 
 every body else, and nothing that is ludicrous, 
 
 however respectable or venerable it may be, es- 
 
 * See " The Revellers," by Mrs. Hemans, — a poem which, 
 though fantastic enough in form, and having more than her 
 Dsual exaggeration of sentiment, contains a share of truth. 
 
 55
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 capes the ridicule of the girls and boys who oc- 
 cupy the front seats in society. We cannot be 
 offended at this ; it is the quota which each con- 
 tributes to the general mirth ; damus, petimusque 
 vicissim. To avoid it, you should do nothing 
 that is singular ; to conquer it when it is directed 
 towards you, the best way is to turn back the 
 laugh on him who raised it. You should endea- 
 vour, however, to profit of that ridicule, by cor- 
 recting in accordance with it, the peculiarity 
 which gave rise to it. 
 
 Trust not yourself; but j'our defects to know, 
 Make use of every friend, — and every foe. 
 
 In society, one should cultivate versatility of 
 intellect and feeling, and not brood or bore upon 
 a single track or subject. A man who maintains 
 the same temper during intercourse with others, 
 will soon become tedious ; and when it is known 
 that he habitually talks on one subject or one 
 class of subjects, or even in one strain, his com- 
 pany will be shunned as tiresome and heavy. 
 56
 
 GEiXERAL MANNER. 
 
 For many reasons of pleasure and of policy, 
 't is a good rule to endeavour usually to conciliate 
 Ihe young. Johnson has said that as time is 
 always making so many vacancies in the friend- 
 ahips with which we start in life, and disgust 
 and disappointment are diminishing the comfort 
 with which the survivors cling together, every 
 man as he grows old should seek new acquaint- 
 ances among those who are his juniors. But as 
 a matter of advantage it is equally necessary. A 
 jittle attention to young men will make them 
 your adherents, and they are the most serviceable 
 one can have : they are ardent, unscrupulous, 
 and ready to do any labour. This is a policy 
 familiar to many great statesmen. 
 
 Whoever would attain eminence as a man of 
 fashion, must keep himself prominent in the eye 
 of society. If he cannot procure to be spoken 
 of well, which is difficult where one is spoken 
 of much, he should do what will make people 
 abuse him. Notoriety is more easily transmuted 
 H 57
 
 GENERAL MANNER. 
 
 into good fame, than obscurity is created into it. 
 
 Boileau, we are told, was never grieved when 
 
 his books were abused on their first appearance ; 
 
 observing with great truth, " that there were no 
 
 books so bad as those which no one spoke of at 
 
 all." Let a man of fashion do things which are 
 
 extravagant and in bad taste, and many will 
 
 abuse him ; but others will take his part, and on 
 
 the breath of a faction he will be raised to the 
 
 highest renown and popularity. "When Alcibi- 
 
 ades cut off the fine tail of his dog, he well knew 
 
 what benefit that would do him in the fashion of 
 
 Athens. 
 
 There is nothing more diligently to be avoided 
 
 than every species of affectation. It is always 
 
 detected ; and it always disgusts. It is often 
 
 found among people of fashion. Now, as a 
 
 hundred years since, 
 
 Wants of all kind? are made to fame a plea; 
 One learns to lisp, another not to see. 
 
 To endeavour to be thought possessed of vicea 
 58
 
 GENERAL MANNER 
 
 or defects, is a form of vanity ; and one of the 
 most ignoble. A man of sense will always re- 
 solve to present himself to the world in his real 
 character ; to do nothing that is not genuine, and 
 say nothing save in a natural manner. To strive 
 to be deemed better than we are, may be par- 
 doned as an instinctive aspiration ; but to wish 
 to be thought beneath our real character, " shows 
 a pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it." " To 
 "jig, to amble, and lisp, and nickname God's 
 creatures," is a trick by which the frivolous 
 would escape contempt by sinking beneath it. 
 59
 
 TITLE III. 
 OF CERTAIN POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 Mores cuique sui fingunt fortunam. 
 
 CORNELIDS NePOS. 
 
 Mihi sic usus est: tibi, ut opua est facto, face. 
 
 Ter. 
 
 The formalities of g-ood-breeding will always 
 be kept up by those who remember that much of 
 the distinction of a gentleman is merely conven- 
 tional, and that it is so intimately connected with 
 etiquette that it can scarcely support itself with- 
 out it. Religion could not be sustained without 
 the aid of superstition, which defends by the 
 name of sanctity the remotest passes to faith ; 
 in like condition, etiquette^ which is the supersti- 
 tion of manner, is requisite to give to the char- 
 acter of a gentleman that importance and mys- 
 tery which are necessary to its respectability. 
 61
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury tells a story of a Span- 
 ish ambassador who abandoned a congress be- 
 cause he could not get precedence of the French 
 envoy. On returning to his court, he waited on 
 the king, and explained his conduct. "What!" 
 said the monarch, "could you think of abandon- 
 ing such an important business for the sake of a 
 ceremony?" The ambassador, piqued at that 
 remark, exclaimed, " A ceremony 1 what is your 
 majesty yourself but a ceremony?" 
 
 Another reason which makes it w^orth while to 
 know these forms and to keep them up, is, that 
 they constitute, as it were, the attire and symbols 
 by which a gentleman is recognized*under cir- 
 cumstances which prevent the display of his 
 character by any other method. Of good-breed- 
 ing as exhibited in conduct, the transient inter- 
 course of ordinary society show^s but little ; and 
 even the conversation that passes between people 
 in a drawing-room is so brief and trifling, that 
 we are obliged to form our opinion of the stand 
 62
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING 
 
 mg and refinement of most persons from petty 
 lets that pass before our eye, and from the gene- 
 ral familiarity that is displayed with the tone and 
 usages of high life. 
 
 A man of fashion ought to congratulate him- 
 self upon the difficulties of his profession, and 
 upon the thorny hedge of etiquette by which it is 
 encircled and guarded ; they add to the glory of 
 his success, and prevent others from coming in 
 and diminishing the distinctness and separate- 
 ness of liis position. The dread of failure in 
 points of social usage, is like the gallows which 
 the thief justly said was the only support of his 
 trade. There was great sagacity in the conduct 
 of the usurer at Vicenza, who called on the par- 
 son of the parish and desired him to preach a 
 sermon against the practice of the vice of usury. 
 The priest, who knew his character, asked the 
 reasons of that request. " There are so many 
 persons in this parish who follow my calling," 
 replied the money-lender, " that I gain little by 
 63
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 it ; but should your sermon correct and restrain 
 this practice, I should then enjoy my profession 
 alone." 
 
 In the intercourse of social life, the importance 
 of little things is very great. Trifles are capable 
 of expressing a greater degree both of regard and 
 disregard, than larger actions. If you are atten- 
 tive in trivial affairs, it is said your regard ex- 
 tends even to the smallest considerations; if you 
 are neglectful in light and unimportant matters, 
 it is observed that you have not enough respect 
 to be civil even in the minutest concerns. That 
 person who picked up the hat of Mr. Madison at 
 the flight of Bladensburgh, exhibited an abase- 
 ment of flattery which it would have been diffi- 
 cult to exceed : and that minister who refused to 
 take up Napoleon's when he had dropped it in 
 the council-chamber as a test of the considera- 
 tion he was held in, displayed a thoroughness of 
 indifference which assured the emperor that his 
 fate was sealed. 
 
 64
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 We shall here set down, without order or con- 
 nexion, some points of etiquette necessary to be 
 known and practised by him who would be well- 
 bred in manner. 
 
 When company enter the room at an evening 
 party or ball, the gentleman of the house should 
 go up and bow to them before they present them- 
 selves to the lady.* He may mention to them in 
 what part of the room they will find the lady of 
 the house, if she is not directly in their view ; 
 but he should not conduct and accompany them 
 up to her, as is often done by persons of inferior 
 breeding who wish to be polite. That this is an 
 error will be seen by reflecting that it is the duty 
 of the mistress of the house to meet and receive 
 her guests at their first entrance into her house, 
 and to go in quest of them, if she has not found 
 
 *I have employed in this volume, the words ' lady' and 
 •gentleman,' instead of the words 'woman' and 'man,' 
 which are more correct expressions and more usual in the 
 best circles. I have done so in deference to the taste and 
 practice of the greater number in this country, 
 
 1 C5
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 them at once ; and no member of the family 
 should by his conduct admit that it is necessp'V 
 for the visiters to seek about for the hostess. He 
 should either let the reception take its course, or 
 should go and tell the lady of the house to come 
 forward and receive such-or-such a person. 
 
 If you are at another house than your ovi^n, and 
 see a lady coming in, unattended by a gentleman, 
 you should offer her your arm and take her up to 
 the lady of the house. You should do the same 
 to ladies vv^ho are taking leave, and you should 
 conduct them to their carriages. 
 
 If a lady is going to her carriage, or is alone 
 in any public place vrhere it is usual or would be 
 convenient for ladies to be attended, you should 
 offer her your arm and service, even if you do 
 not know her. To do so, in a private room, as in 
 the case above mentioned, might be thought a 
 liberty. 
 
 When a waiter of coffee or of preserves is 
 handed to a lady she should help herself, and 
 66
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 gentlemen standing by should permit her to do 
 so, and should abstain from any interference. It 
 was once deemed courtly for gentlemen to save 
 ladies from this trouble, by putting sugar and 
 cream in their coffee for them, and asking them 
 on other occasions what they would be helped 
 to ; but it is now clearly understood that the 
 effort of a lady's helping herself in fact amounts 
 to nothing, and that by doing so, she can gratify 
 her own taste and choice much better than when 
 another serves her, and, at the same time, that 
 quietness and ease of action, which is the chief 
 and best characteristic of society, is attained in 
 a much higher degree. In second-rate houses 
 you still see the host going round with every 
 waiter in the fussy manner of the last century, 
 and demanding how much sugar and cream every 
 one will take in their coffee. But so perfectly 
 disused among the best-bred persons is this prac- 
 tice, that if you see any man doing it, you may 
 67
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 confidently decide that he is not accustomed to 
 the first society. 
 
 If a lady and gentleman are conversing to- 
 gether at an evening party, it would be a rude- 
 ness in another person to go up and interrupt 
 them by introducing a new topic of observation. 
 If you are sure that there is nothing of a parti- 
 cular and private interest passing between them, 
 you may join their conversation and strike into 
 the current of their remarks ; yet if you then find 
 that they are so much engaged and entertained by 
 the discussion that they were holding together, 
 as to render the termination or the change of its 
 character unwelcome, you should withdraw. If, 
 however, two persons are occupied with one an 
 other upon what you guess to be terms peculiarly 
 delicate and particular, you should entirely with- 
 hold yourself from their company. If you are 
 talking to a lady with the ordinary indiflference 
 of a common acquaintance, and are only waiting 
 68 ^
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 till some one else comes up, for an opportunity 
 to leave her, you should not move the instant an- 
 other arrives, for that would look as if your pre- 
 vious tarrying had been compulsory ; but you 
 should remain a few moments and then turn 
 away. 
 
 At an evening party you should make a point 
 of going all round the room, after you have sa- 
 luted the lady of the house, and bowing to every 
 lady with whom you are acquainted. If, also, in 
 any public room, or place of exhibition, you see 
 any persons whom you know, you should go and 
 speak to them. 
 
 If you meet ladies or gentlemen whom you do 
 not know, at a morning visit, or a small evening 
 party where you sit next to them, and are brought 
 in contact with them, converse with them with 
 the same readiness and ease as if you had known 
 them all your life. Moreover, if in talking with 
 one whom you are acquainted with, there are 
 others in the group whom you do not know, you 
 69
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 should address them precisely on the same terms 
 on which you speak to your friend. On such an 
 occasion, the topics should he as impersonal as 
 possible, but the manner should be wholly free 
 from embarrassment. A shy or awkward de- 
 meanour towards strang'ers in such positions, is 
 the certain mark of one not familiar with the 
 great world. 
 
 If you are presented to a lady at an evening 
 party, you should call upon her soon after. 
 
 When you receive a card of invitation, you 
 should return an answer immediately, — in the 
 same hour that you receive it. This is a point 
 of conduct which good-breeding, good feeling, 
 good sense, and good morals seem to unite in en- 
 forcing; and yet it is often violated. It is at once 
 an instinct of kindness, and in some degree a 
 moral duty, to let the person who has been so 
 courteous in the offer of hospitality, know at the 
 earliest possible moment how many people may 
 be expected to come, that the arrangements may 
 70
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 be made accordingly ; and the withholding of 
 replies till a late period, often occasions the most 
 grievous embarrassment and inconvenience to the 
 entertainer. Moreover, reason and the sense of 
 the thing, require that when a request is made to 
 you, you should respond promptly, one way or 
 the other; just as when a verbal question is put, 
 the reply should follow instantly. The only ex- 
 cuse which any one could give for not sending an 
 immediate answer would be that the servants 
 were not at leisure to carry it ; — a most vulgar 
 and plebeian excuse ! as if the servants of a gen- 
 tleman or lady were not always at leisure to do 
 what their employer wished. It is to be under- 
 stood that people of quality keep attendants 
 enough to meet all the exigencies of life. Atten- 
 tion to this point always has been and will be a 
 test of the real refinement of a person ; but I 
 trust the time will soon come when society will 
 settle the practice so authoritatively that no one 
 having any pretensions to good standing can with 
 71
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 safety venture to delay an answer to an invita- 
 tion. 
 
 If a lady accepts an invitation, nothing but the 
 most cogent necessity amounting to an absolute 
 prevention, should be permitted to interfere with 
 her keeping her word. To decline at a late pe- 
 riod, after having accepted, is, I believe, invari- 
 ably felt to be a rudeness and an insult ; and it 
 will be resented in some civil way. 
 
 A young gentleman should always accept the 
 invitation of a lady, whether he is intending to 
 go or not ; unless absence from town, or illness, 
 or some such matter will prevent his going, and 
 then the reason should be stated in the note. It 
 IS so much a matter of custom or of course for 
 young men to accept, that a bare refusal would 
 excite surprise. If you do not go, you should 
 call the next morning and leave your card by 
 way of apology. If the party is large, there is 
 no very imperative duty upon you to go, though 
 it is certainly more proper and gentlemanlike to 
 72
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 do so, after accepting. If the party is small, and 
 your presence would be important, it would be 
 rude, and it would do you an injury with the mis- 
 tress of the house, not to appear after having 
 promised to do so. 
 
 At an evening- party, a gentleman should ab- 
 stain from conversing with the members of the' 
 family at whose house the company are assem- 
 bled, as they wish to be occupied with entertain- 
 ing their other guests. A well-bred man will do 
 all that he can in assisting the lady of the house 
 to render the evening pleasant. He will avoid 
 talking to men, and will devote himself entirely 
 to the women, and especially to those who are 
 not much attended to by others. He will exert 
 himself to amuse the company as much as pos- 
 sible, and to give animation and interest to the 
 occasion. Such efforts are always observed and 
 appreciated by the hostess, and win her regard 
 and esteem ; while an opposite conduct rarely 
 fails to excite something like resentment. To 
 K 73
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 show that you take an interest in the success of 
 her party, and to do all that you can to promote 
 it, will give her a great deal of pleasure. 
 
 There is an uncourtly fault often committed in 
 company, j'^et perhaps, in all cases, arising from 
 thoughtlessness rather than from rudeness, — that 
 of remarking to the hostess that the room is very 
 warm, or that the weather is so bad as to render 
 the ride to her house extremely disagreeable. 
 Such remarks, it is true, may convey no direct 
 reproach upon her, because the matters are be- 
 yond her control, or against her intention; yet 
 they make her feel uncomfortably for having been 
 the occasion of the suffering complained of, and 
 she will always be obliged to apologize or ex- 
 press her regret. It is bad taste in the hostess, 
 likewise, to talk about such things, and to anti- 
 cipate observation by excuses and regrets. En- 
 tire silence should be preserved as to such mat- 
 ters. 
 
 At an evening party, never put a tea-cup ; wine- 
 74
 
 POINTS OF GOOD- BREEDING. 
 
 glass, glass of water, or cup of lemonade, back 
 upon the same waiter from which you took it. 
 That waiter will be handed to others, and it will 
 be disagreeable to them to survey an array of 
 half-empty cups and glasses, and perhaps incon- 
 venient to distinguish which are fresh and which 
 have been used. Another waiter, in every re- 
 spectable house, follows the first one for the pur 
 pose of receiving cups and glasses with which 
 persons have done, and upon it alone should they 
 be placed. 
 
 When the servants are engaged in handing tea 
 or doing any other special service, you should not 
 withdraw any one of them from that duty by 
 sending them from the room for anything else, — 
 as for a glass of water or piece of ice. This is 
 particularly important at a small party, where 
 there are few servants, and where their absence 
 will be more inconvenient. 
 
 When you send a book to a gentleman or lady, 
 as a gift or loan, or return one which you have 
 75
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 borrowed, you should enclose it in white paper 
 under seal. Never keep a borrowed book long : 
 do not write in it even if you write as well as 
 S. T. C, and do not mark it with your pencil in 
 any way. 
 
 I do not know any small matter which is more 
 often the source of annoyance and inconvenience, 
 though always kindly intended, than the habit 
 of sending books to people to read, befjause the 
 lender thinks that the other will be entertained. 
 It compels persons to read what they may not 
 have leisure or inclination to do, and to prepare 
 an opinion which they may find it difficult or un- 
 pleasant to express, and it throws upon them a 
 responsibility, which they may find onerous, of 
 taking care of the work. When books are spoken 
 of, therefore, it is more refined not to make an 
 offer of lending them. At all events, you should 
 not press their acceptance, or send them unless 
 your offer is accepted readily and willingly. It 
 is better, in all cases, simply to say that you 
 76
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 have such a work, which is very much at the 
 service of the other. 
 
 Civilities always merit acknowledgment; tri- 
 vial and personal ones by word ; greater and 
 more distant ones by letter. If a man sends you 
 his book, or pays any other similar compliment, 
 you should express your consideration of his 
 courtesy, by a note. If you have been received 
 with interest and kindness during an absence 
 from home, y6u owe it 'to those who have enter- 
 tained you, to inform them of your safe return, 
 and to thank them for their hospitality or atten- 
 tions. 
 
 In leaving your card at a hotel, you should en- 
 close it in an envelope and direct it. The re- 
 missness of servants at public places in this 
 country is so great, that there is no other method 
 by which your visit will reach the knowledge of 
 the party for whom it is intended. If you leave 
 a card for a friend who is staying at the house of 
 a person whom you do not visit, it is offensive 
 77
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 and vulgar to give it a written designation for the 
 person for whom it is intended, — as by inscribing 
 upon it, " For Mr. So-and-So." The amount of 
 that is, to say to the master of the house, " Take 
 notice. Sir, that no portion of this civility is in- 
 tended to reach you." Either leave a single 
 card without any writing upon it, or if your rela- 
 tion to the host is not such as to present a de- 
 cided objection to it, leave a card for each party. 
 Presents made to friends, should consist of 
 articles likely to be often in view and in use, so 
 that they may frequently and agreeably bring the 
 giver to memory, — as for example, diamonds or 
 snuff-boxes. Avoid, particularly, making a pre- 
 sent of any cumbrous thing, difficult to dispose 
 of or employ. Such a gift, instead of exciting 
 gratitude, will only cause you to be laughed at 
 for your awkwardness. I have often seen costly 
 but tactless donations that drew from the obliged 
 party no other remark than the frequent one of, 
 " Poor Mr. So-and-So ! he meant it very kindly, 
 78
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 but his gift is a great plague :" and the unlucky 
 article which was intended to cement esteem, has 
 continued to irritate and fret the receiver, till 
 courage has been summoned to throw it into the 
 alley. 
 
 If a person in conversation has begun to say- 
 something, and has checked himself, you should 
 avoid the tactless error so often committed, of 
 insisting on hearing him. Doubtless there was 
 some reason for his change of intention, and it 
 may make him feel unpleasantly to urge him for- 
 ward according to his first impulse. In like man- 
 ner, if a person has been interrupted in some 
 remark, or prevented in attempting one, and when 
 having opportunity to speak, evinces no desire to 
 repeat his intended observation, you ought not to 
 lay any compulsion upon him to do so. In all 
 probability, the remark he designed to make, was 
 of a trifling sort not worthy to be uttered under 
 circumstances of so much attention, as you create 
 for it by calling for its repetition ; or it may have 
 79
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 been of a kind, proper to the time when it was 
 first offered, but not adapted to that after-moment 
 at which you call for it. In such cases, if you 
 have been the hinderer, it is better simply and 
 calmly to apologize, and then give place for him 
 to speak if he wishes to ; but not by word or 
 manner to force him to speak. It is to be sup- 
 posed that every one has courage enough to say 
 what he wants to, without being drawn upon the 
 stage ; and if the remark would do the speaker 
 credit, depend upon it he will give it to you of 
 his own accord. 
 
 In meeting a friend whom you have not seen 
 for some time, and of the state and history of 
 whose family you have not been recently or par- 
 ticularly informed, you should avoid making en- 
 quiries or allusions in respect to particular indi- 
 viduals of his family, until you have possessed 
 yourself of knowledge respecting them. Some 
 may be dead ; others may have misbehaved, 
 separated themselves, or fallen under some dis- 
 80
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 tressing calamity. Enquire after his family gene- 
 rally, and that will give him an opportunity to 
 say what he thinks proper, and from his manner 
 you will learn whether there is anything wrong. 
 
 If a man should incautiously ask you about a 
 member of your family who is dead, or of whom 
 from any other cause you do not wish to spep.k, 
 you should reply, " My family, I thank you, are 
 all well," and change the subject. Your manner 
 may indicate whatever you wish him to know, 
 and if he ])ossesses a particle of tact, he will fly 
 immediately from the point. We have all of us 
 very often seen cases of distressing embarrass- 
 ment arise from an enquiry being heedlessly 
 made about one who is dead ; and yet I think the 
 fault of that distress lies really upon the person 
 to whom the question is put. After the question 
 has been put, it is in his power and his only, to 
 prevent the distress and cure the error. 
 
 There are many cases of disaster, accident, 
 and illness, in which it is better not to make any 
 L 61
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 enquiries, or express regret or sympathy. This 
 applies when there is anything ridiculous or mor- 
 tifying connected with the evil, and when the 
 malady implies anything like inferiority or shame, 
 and when it is of a sort that the sufferer would 
 rather it were forgotten and not thought of. On 
 all such occasions, take no notice of the indis- 
 position or misfortune, and treat the person as if 
 he were entirely well. 
 
 In passing a lady in the street, who is accom- 
 panied by a gentleman on the outside, there is 
 the same reason for your taking the inside that 
 there would be for you to walk on that side if 
 you were with them. You should take that side, 
 then, unless you would pay the gentleman, if he 
 were alone, the compliment of giving him the 
 wall. 
 
 When you salute a lady, or a gentleman to 
 whom you wish to show particular respect, in 
 the street, you should take your hat entirely off, 
 and cause it to describe a circle of at least ninety
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 degrees from its original resting-place. The in- 
 ferior classes of men, as you may see if you 
 think fit to take notice of them, only press the 
 rim of their hat when they speak to women of 
 their acquaintance. 
 
 If there is any man whom you wish to con- 
 ciliate, you should make a point of taking off 
 your hat to him as often as you meet him. Peo- 
 ple are always gratified by respect, and they 
 generally conceive a good opinion of the under- 
 standing of one who appreciates their excellence 
 so much as to respect it. Such is the irresistible 
 effect of an habitual display of this kind of man- 
 ner, that perseverance in it will often conquer 
 enmity and obliterate contempt. 
 
 If you are giving a person sugar upon a plate 
 of fruit, as strawberries, pine-apples, or such 
 matters, you should not scatter it over the article 
 to which it is to be added, but should place it at 
 the side of the plate by itself, which will enable 
 the person to use as much as may be desirable. 
 83
 
 POINTS OF GOOD BREEDING. 
 
 In like manner, at dinner, in helping another to 
 gravy, you should avoid putting it upon any- 
 thing that is on the plate, and should lay it upon 
 a part of the plate that is unoccupied. 
 
 When you receive a letter of business, yoa 
 should answer it immediately, provided the sub- 
 ject be not one that requires delay. You may 
 be certain that your correspondent is wishing to 
 hear from you as soon as possible ; and for you 
 to put off the reply to wait your own conveni- 
 ence, and to resolve that j^ou will not gratify his 
 desire till to-morrow, when yon might just as 
 well do it to-day, is assuredly any-thing but 
 courteous. Promptness and punctuality, even in 
 the lightest affairs, give evidence of character, 
 and impart an interest and spirit to all occasions 
 of intercourse. Who does not feel that the real 
 greatness, even of the Duke of Wellington, is 
 increased by his known invariable practice of re- 
 plying to every communication by letter, th& mo- 
 ment it is received ? 
 
 84
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 If you see a person in mourning, you should 
 not take any notice of that circumstance in his 
 presence, or let him see that you have observed 
 it ; and you should abstain from all question on 
 the point, and expressions of regret, surprise or 
 sympathy. That is a rule often violated by 
 thoughtless persons ; but a moment's considera- 
 tion will show that the feelings of the individual 
 may be such as to render any allusion to the sub- 
 ject of his grief very painful to him. In his ab- 
 sence, enquiries may be made from others. It is 
 scarcely needful to suggest that when a man is 
 in mourning, and you do not know for whom, 
 you should avoid asking after any of his friends, 
 until you have informed yourself upon that point. 
 
 If, in walking, you meet a friend, accompanied 
 by one whom you do not know, speak to both. 
 Also, if you are walking with a friend who 
 speaks to a friend whom you are not acquainted 
 with, you should speak to the person ; and with 
 as much respect and ease as if you knew the 
 85
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 party. If you meet a man whom you have met 
 frequently before, who knows your name, and 
 whose name you know, it is polite to salute him. 
 
 If you meet or join or are visited by a person 
 who has a book or box, or any article whatever, 
 under his arm or in his hand, and he does not 
 offer to show it to you, you should not, even if 
 he be your most intimate friend, take it from him 
 and look at it. There may be many reasons why 
 he would not like you to see it, or be obliged to 
 answer the enquiries or give the explanations 
 connected with it. That intrusive curiosity is 
 very inconsistent with the delicacy of a well-bred 
 man, and always offends in some degree. 
 
 In walking, the hand should not be closed or 
 clenched. In your ordinary progress, you have 
 no occasion for a Jht. A gentleman wishes to 
 meet the world with an expanded palm. The 
 arms should hang easily, by the side ; and that 
 cannot be effected when the hand is clenched. 
 Moreover, the figure is more sightly whep the 
 86
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 arm terminates in a point. A gentleman should 
 entertain as much horror of a swing, as a high- 
 wayman does. 
 
 If you have paid a compliment to one man, or 
 have used towards him any expression of parti- 
 cular civility, you should not show the same con- 
 duct to any other person in his presence. For 
 example, if a gentleman comes to your house and 
 you tell him with warmth and interest that you 
 ' are glad to see him,' he will be pleased with 
 the attention, and will probably thank you ; but 
 if he hears you say the same thing to twenty 
 other people, he will not only perceive that your 
 courtesy was worth nothing, but he will feel 
 some resentment at having been imposed on. To 
 treat all the world with undiscriminating respect, 
 and the same shows of affection, does less good 
 than to treat every one with coldness ; for it be- 
 gets a reputation of insincerity. 
 
 It is in bad ton for a newly-married couple, 
 when going to an evening party, to enter the 
 87
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 room together. Some older person, or some 
 relative of hers, should take the bride in. It is 
 in better taste that, on all occasions of appearing 
 in public, the pair should not be exactly together. 
 The recognition of that relation should as much 
 as possible be confined to the fireside. It is not 
 pleasant to see persons thrusting their mutual 
 devotedness into the eye of society. 
 
 When music is introduced at a party, the play- 
 ing should either be by professional persons, or 
 by some members of the family at whose house 
 the company are. It is not delicate to invite any 
 of the guests to go to the piano, and to tax their 
 efforts for the entertainment of the circle. 
 
 K a stranger from another city calls to see you, 
 or you meet him by accident, it is not tactful to 
 ask him how long he has been in town. There 
 may be many reasons why he may not wish to 
 have that known. He may have been in town 
 for several days, and may be unwilling to confess 
 88
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 that he has waited so long without coining to 
 see you. 
 
 If you call to see a stranger who is staying at 
 the house of another person, you should not in 
 the presence of his host, ask him how long ne 
 intends to remain. His stay may be dependent 
 ou the invitation he expects to receive, or on 
 other grounds he may be disinclined to announce 
 the intended length of his visit. 
 
 It IS generally better to say " I hope you are 
 well," or, " I hope that such a one is well," than 
 to ask a question on the subject. This, however, 
 is only applicable to those cases in which you 
 are so well acquainted with the parties, and are 
 in a comdition to know of their health so fre- 
 quentl}', that one could not long have been sick 
 without your hearing of it. If you have not 
 recently heard much of the party of whom you 
 speak, it is better to ask directly and with an air 
 of interest, how he is, for he may have been out 
 of health for some time, and you would not 
 M 89
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 gratify his friend or relative by showing that you 
 had known nothing of his state for so long a 
 period. 
 
 If you dine with another, and there is any dish 
 particularly nice upon the table, and which the 
 entertainer must regard with peculiar compla- 
 cency, it is an act of great rudeness to decline 
 taking any of it. Natural humanity and conven- 
 tional good-breeding unite in requiring the guests 
 to show that they partake, in the fullest degree, 
 of the gratification which has been provided for 
 them. That affectation which leads some per- 
 sons to decline the best things on the table and 
 confine themselves to plain and common things, 
 is little better than brutal. It mortifies and dis- 
 gusts the host incalculably. A man of decent 
 good feeling, or of tolerable courtesy, will make 
 a point of selecting the most recherche dishes, 
 and using them copiously. He will feel certain 
 that he gives more pleasure to his Amphitryon 
 .90
 
 POINTS OF GOOD.BREEDIN/3. 
 
 by appearing to enjoy his viands, than by leaving 
 them for his own enjoyment. 
 
 There are many dishes to which you should 
 help yourself with your fingers, and not employ 
 a fork or spoon. It would be ridiculous, for ex- 
 ample, to take cherries with a spoon. If a lady 
 asks you to help her to an article of that sort, 
 you should give her a plate, and then hand her 
 the dish that she may help herself. 
 
 If you are driving in company with another 
 who holds the reins, you should most carefully 
 abstain from even the slightest interference, by 
 word or act, with the province of the driver. Any 
 comment, advice, or gesture of control, implies a 
 reproof which* is very offensive. If there be any 
 point of imminent danger, where you think his 
 conduct wrong, you may suggest a change, but 
 it must be done with great delicacy and must be 
 prefaced by an apolog5^ During the ordinary 
 course of the drive, you should resign yourself 
 wholly to his control, and be entirely passive. 
 91
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 If you do not approve of his manner, or have not 
 confidence in his skill, you need not drive with 
 him again ; but while you are with him, you 
 should yield implicitly. 
 
 At a house where you are intimate, you may 
 drop in and take tea without beincr invited ; but 
 it is otherwise with dinner. We are told that 
 Boileau, who had a very delicate and correct 
 sense of honour, recommended it as a rule, which 
 he himself always practised, never to dine with 
 even one's most intimate friends without being 
 invited in particular. The maxim is worthy of 
 close adoption. 
 
 At dinner, there should not be much conversa- 
 tion during the first course, while the meats are 
 receiving attention. At least, during that season 
 the remarks which are made should be brief, and 
 quiet, and not upon earnest or exciting topics. 
 Long stories should be avoided, for the listeners 
 have other organs than the ear, which they are 
 wishing to exercise at that time. At a later 
 92
 
 POINTS OF GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 part of the entertainment, discourse is agreeable. 
 
 There was reason in the complaint of a noted 
 
 Parisian epicure that talking spoilt his dinner, 
 
 and upon whom this epigram was made : 
 
 Gomor, etant a table avec certains pedants, 
 Q,ui criaient et prechaient trop haut sur Ja vendange; 
 Lui qui ne songe alors qu'a, ce que font ses dens, 
 Paix la, paix la, dit-il, on ne sait ce qu'on mange. 
 
 If you are at a small party where tea is made 
 in the room, you should not enter into conversa- 
 tion with the lady who presides at the Jtable, and 
 you should not draw your chair close to her. 
 She has need of all her attention in arranging 
 and preparing the tea-waiters, and she also re- 
 quires room for her arms. 
 
 In company, you should never tilt your chair 
 back upon its hind feet ; especially not at a din- 
 ner-table. 
 
 93
 
 TITLE IV. 
 
 OP BEHAVIOUR ON PARTICULAR 
 OCCASIONS. 
 
 — A gentleman of excellent breeding, of great admittance, 
 generally allowed for his many warlike, courtlike and 
 learned preparations. — Shakspeake. Hen. IV. 
 
 To coincide with the humour of the company 
 which you are in, and to do as others do, is a 
 rule which it is generally safe, and sometimes 
 indispensable, to follow. On some occasions it 
 may be proper or necessary to differ. Care, 
 however, should always be taken to differ in 
 such a way that your course may not convey an 
 uncourteous reproof to those from whose practice 
 you dissent. For example, if at a dinner-party, 
 you were to pass the decanter without filling 
 your glass, when others were drinking freely, 
 95
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 you would express something like a rebuke to 
 those around you, and would render your com- 
 pany less agreeable : to do so at your own table 
 would be a positive rudeness. 
 
 A man should be able to accommodate himself 
 to every grade of persons and every class of cus- 
 toms and doings. If thrown into company with 
 the gay, and even the intemperate and dissolute, 
 he should appear to be one of them, and so attune 
 himself with them that no difference should be 
 visible. This variety and adaptation are neces- 
 sary to the complete character of a gentleman 
 and man of the world ; and, as many cases, that 
 I have witnessed, prove, is perfectly consistent 
 with purity and soundness of morals. " Let him 
 be able to do everything," says Montaigne, "but 
 let him love to do nothing but what is good." 
 That bigotry of deportment which can be but 
 one and uniform under every condition and cir- 
 cumstance, is as inelegant as injurious. Let a 
 man educate himself into an abhorrence of every- 
 96
 
 OF BEHA-VlOljR. 
 
 thing licentious, intemperate and gross ; but let 
 him not think the accomplishment of his manner 
 complete, until he can act those parts, if occasion 
 require, thoroughly and successfully. Of course, 
 occasions requiring such displays are to be 
 avoided as much as possible ; but every one who 
 mingles much with the world or has extensive 
 dealings with men, is liable to be thrown among 
 coarse and irregular persons whom he is obliged 
 to conciliate, and who will laugh him to scorn if 
 he carries with him into their company the nar- 
 row cockneyism of a refined and fastidious taste 
 and style. Let a man go to a county court or a 
 state legislature, or among bankers, or brokers, 
 or aldermen ; in short, into any rank of society 
 beneath the highest, and he will be distanced 
 very speedily and thrown hors du combat.^ unless 
 he can drink and roar and talk roughly. Sit 
 Robert Walpole cultivated very diligently the art 
 of gross conversation, and if his contemporaries 
 may be credited, attained it in an eminent degree : 
 N 97
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 and the reason he gave was, that everybody could 
 talk in that strain and liked to talk so ; and of 
 the classes of business-men with whom he was 
 chiefly conversant, this was no doubt true. Lord 
 -Byron was once staying with Lord Jersey in the 
 country, and on account of indigestion, or per- 
 haps from a mere freak of fastidiousness, he 
 remained in his room during dinner; but hearing 
 that some persons below ridiculed his effeminacy, 
 he went down after the cloth was removed, and 
 drank half the company under the table. None 
 have ever justified Callisthenes for forfeiting the 
 favour of his master, Alexander the Great, by 
 refusing the wine-cup. " Let a man laugh, play, 
 and drink with his prince," says Montaigne; 
 " nay, I would have him even in his debauches 
 too hard for the rest of the company, and to excel 
 his companions in ability and vigour, and that he 
 may not give over doing it, either through defect 
 of power or knowledge how to do it, but for want 
 of will. ' Multum interest, utram peccare quis 
 98
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 nolit, aut nesciat.' (Sen.) I thought I passed a 
 compliment upon a lord, as free from those ex- 
 cesses as any man in France, by asking him 
 before a great deal of very good company, how 
 many times he had been drunk in Germany, in 
 the time of his being there about his Majesty's 
 affairs ; which he also took as it was intended, 
 and made answer, three times ; and withal, told 
 us the whole story of his debauches. I know 
 some, who for want of this faculty, have found a 
 great inconvenience by it in negotiating with that 
 nation. I have often with great admiration re- 
 flected upon the wonderful constitution of Alci- 
 biades, who so easily could transform himself to 
 so various fashions without any prejudice to his 
 health ; one while outdoing the Persian pomp 
 and luxury; and another, the Lacedemonian aus- 
 terity and frugality; as reformed in Sparta as 
 voluptuous in Ionia ; 
 
 Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res 
 I would have my pupil to be such a one." 
 9^
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 This principle of the good Sieur de Perigord 
 should not perhaps be carried quite so far as it 
 was by the Honoxirable William Pole Tylney 
 Long- Wellesley, the nephew of the Duke of 
 "Wellington, who told Dr. Southcote " that he 
 considered it the principal branch of his chil- 
 dren's education, that they should know how, if 
 necessary, to make themselves perfect black- 
 guards ; it being his wish that they should know 
 how to enter into and associate with the lowest 
 and most vulgar society, without the persons 
 with whom they should associate being able to 
 discern that they were the children of a gentle- 
 man, or gentlemen themselves." This eccentric 
 patrician often expressed to the tutors of his 
 family, his particular wish and desire that his 
 children should adopt the language and manners 
 of the lower classes, in order that they might 
 obtain a knowledge of the world ; and he acted 
 in conformity with this theory. He often boasted 
 100
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 to his friends " that, while residing in Paris, he 
 had frequently procured children of the lowest 
 description to come to the back of his house, to 
 teach his children to learn and repeat the oaths 
 and indecent language made use of by such 
 blackguards ; and that, in return for the oaths so 
 taught them in the French language, he made his 
 boys teach those low children to swear in Eng- 
 lish ; and he declared that when he had the gov- 
 ernment of his children, he would take care that 
 they should be present at bull-baits, cock-fights, 
 dog-fights, and all other sports of the like nature, 
 in order to afford them an opportunity of hearing 
 and learning the oaths employed by people usu- 
 ally attending such sports, which were manly 
 sports and ought to be pursued by his children in 
 preference to any other." Lord Eldon, not en- 
 tertaining precisely the same views with the 
 Hon. Mr. Wellesley, on the subject of education, 
 took his children from him and placed them in 
 the hands of other guardians. 
 101
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 It is a delicate and acceptable flattery, when a 
 man is doing anything at which he feels a little 
 uneasy or ashamed, for another to do the same 
 and even go beyond him in the practice. This 
 was well understood at Versailles in the time of 
 Louis XIV. When that monarch, in his old age 
 and under the tuition of Maintenon, was led to 
 an excess of devotion, his courtiers rivalled all 
 his bigotry, and some of them would take the 
 sacrament twice a day. Richelieu was wont, 
 after the close application of hours to state 
 affairs, to divert himself by leaping about his 
 chamber with great violence and activity, and as 
 much secrecy as possible. One day, the elder 
 De Grammont, who, having married one of his 
 nieces, had free access to him at all times, found 
 him jumping with great vehemence in his gal- 
 lery. The intruder, who was a thorough cour- 
 tier, began himself to leap, and challenged his 
 lordship to a trial of skill in that exercise. The 
 Cardinal understood the delicate courtesy of De 
 102
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 Grammont, and ever after showed hirn many 
 strong proofs of his attachment. 
 
 There are a great many cases in which a man 
 is neglected or another is preferred, when one 
 might take offence and resent the slight ; but it 
 is generally wiser, as a matter of reason, and 
 more refined, as a point of good-breeding, to pass 
 the thing by with indiiference, and acquiesce in 
 it as a thing to be regretted but not helped. 
 When there is no intention to insult, but the 
 offence proceeds from a real preference for an- 
 other, or a sincere w^ant of esteem for himself, 
 no wise man, however much he may be mortified, 
 will exhibit irritation or pique. Henry IV. of 
 France once paid a private and unexpected visit 
 to the fair Gabrielle, at a time when the Duke of 
 Belle Guarde was with her. The Duke retreated 
 precipitately under the lady's bed, and she re- 
 ceived the king as if no one had been Avith her. 
 Henry had seen the Duke creep under the bed, 
 but taking no notice of it, behaved in the most 
 103
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 cordial and pleasant manner. A cold collation 
 was served, and Henry, as he helped himself, 
 cut off the leg of a chicken, and throwing it 
 under the bed, said with great good, humour, 
 "Every one must live." Neither the Duke nor 
 the lady ever offended a^ain. 
 
 To get money from a man who owes it to you 
 and won't pay it, is a nice matter, and certainly 
 a very important one. If you were to ask directly 
 for it, you would give deadly offence, and proba- 
 bly receive a challenge. It is necessary, there- 
 fore, to resort to some indirect mode of request, 
 and, if possible, to throw something humorous 
 into your style, which will repel anger. Tal- 
 bot, afterwards Earl of Tyrconnel, a courtier of 
 Charles the Second, was in the habit of playing 
 deep with Grammont, and owed him three or 
 four hundred guineas one evening when he was 
 sent to the Tower. That little accident made him 
 forget his usual punctuality in paying the next 
 morning what he had lost over night ; and it so 
 104
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 completely eiFaced his recollection of the thing-, 
 that he never again thought of it. Gramraont 
 took leave of him as he was going to France, 
 and wished him a good journey, without Talbot's 
 taking any notice of the debt. After some farther 
 compliments, " Adieu ! " said Gramraont, " God 
 bless you ! be sure not to fall sick upon the road ; 
 but if you should, pray remember me in your 
 will." Talbot burst out a-laugliing, and recol- 
 lecting the debt, immediately sent it to him. 
 
 If a hit has been made against you, or a piece 
 of ridicule fixed upon you, which you cannot 
 reply to or obviate, the only way is to make no 
 resistance, but to join in the laugh. Ridicule 
 never yet hurt any man who did not show that 
 he was hurt. I believe that we enjoy ridicule 
 only in proportion to the annoyance it gives to 
 the person aimed at. It is that annoyance which 
 diverts us, rather than the ridicule itself. Lamb 
 once wrote a farce, and when the representation 
 took place, he and his sister seated themselves 
 o 105
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 in the pit. At the beginning of the performance, 
 they clapped, applauded and laughed, at the top 
 of their power. But when the house grew dis- 
 satisfied, and it became apparent that the farce 
 would be 'damned,' Lamb and his sister turned 
 about, and hissed and hooted with the utmost 
 vehemence, and were by far the most indignant 
 of all the spectators. By that act, Lamb escaped 
 the raillery of his friends during the rest of his 
 life. 
 
 Menage never showed his good sense more 
 strikingly than by his behaviour on the appear- 
 ance of Moliere's "Femmes Savantes," in which 
 he was satirized under the name of Vadius. The 
 quarrel between that personage and Trissotin, in 
 the play, was founded on a real dispute between 
 Menage and Cotin at Madame Rambouillet's, 
 whose house Moliere used to frequent till the 
 sarcasms of those two drove him away in offence. 
 On returning from the performance of the play, 
 Madame Rambouillet said to Menage with great 
 106
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 indignation, " What ! will you suffer this fellow 
 to expose us to ridicule in this way 1 " " Ma- 
 dam," replied Menage, "we had better be pro- 
 foundly silent ; the play is above criticism, and 
 the representation is perfectly true." 
 
 At a time when Frederick the Great was issu- 
 ing some oppressive edicts in support of his 
 coffee monopoly, a humorous print was pub- 
 lished, which represented him sitting on the 
 ground with a coffee-mill between his hands, 
 grinding away with great perseverance. As the 
 king was riding through the streets of Berlin, he 
 perceived a crowd assembled round' the place 
 where one of these prints was exhibited : he 
 immediately rode up and desired the tradesman 
 to " hang it lower, that the people might not 
 break their necks with staring at it." He was 
 recognized, and saluted immediately with the 
 loudest applause. 
 
 Lord North, who possessed a large share of 
 the same good sense, was one day passing a 
 107
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 print-shop, in the window of which a caricature 
 of himself was hanging, and not having seen it 
 before, he stopped to look at it. Being recog- 
 nized in this position, he was surrounded by a 
 number of persons, before he was aware of it ; 
 when, retiring from the window, he said to the 
 crowd, with a smile, " Very like, is it not? " 
 
 When one is compelled to give up to another, 
 from inferior power or the disadvantage of posi- 
 tion, there is a mode of yielding which is so 
 prompt and graceful as to take from submission 
 all its dishonour. As any one is liable to be 
 brought at some time into that situation, this is a 
 tactic worth studying and practising. It is said 
 that Count Grammont, who had been in some 
 sort engaged to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George 
 Hamilton, went off suddenly to France without 
 providing for the fulfilment of his promises. 
 Count George Hamilton immediately followed, 
 and overtaking him at Dover, thus addressed him, 
 " My dear friend, I believe you have forgot a 
 108
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 circumstance which was to take place before your 
 return to France." De Grammont immediately 
 replied, " True, my dear friend ; what a memory 
 I have ! I quite forgot that I was to marry your 
 sister; but I will instantly accompany you back 
 to London, and rectify that forgetfulness." * 
 This does not seem to have abated in the least 
 Count Hamilton's lofty admiration of De Gram- 
 mont, for in the most charming biography that 
 any language can boast, he assigns him every 
 virtue that can adorn a cavalier. 
 
 The responsibility that rests upon the seconds 
 in a duel, is very great, and should be seriously 
 regarded by every one whom circumstances place 
 in that unfortunate position. The seconds may 
 always prevent a duel from taking effect, and 
 they always ought to. They should be astute 
 
 * 1 give this anecdote on the authority of Walpole, though 
 there are some circumstances which appear to render it very 
 improbable. It is related by the authors of the Biographia 
 Brittanica ; but I forget whom they cite for it. 
 
 109
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 in inventing forms of apology and explanation 
 which may satisfy one party without compro- 
 mitting the honour of the other. It is idle to say 
 that the parties cannot be reconciled j and thai 
 nothing will conquer their determination to meet- 
 Out of Ireland, no man has that recklessness of 
 life, and out of hell, no man that malignity of 
 temper, which will overcome the natural earnest 
 wish of every one to escape that risk, if it can 
 be done consistently wdth reputation. Something 
 may always be contrived by which both may 
 retire with flying colours. At all events, cer- 
 tain unconquerable impediments, founded on the 
 honour of the principals, may always be inter- 
 posed by the seconds to prevent the encounter 
 from occurring. 
 
 The parties themselves, in the absence of skil- 
 ful conduct on the part of their supporters, have 
 often practised on these principles with great 
 success. An Italian and a Frenchman happened 
 both to have a bull's head in their coats of arms, 
 110
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 and accordingly accused each other of mutual 
 usurpations in their quarterings. A challenge 
 followed from the Frenchman, and the persons 
 met. When they were on the point of engaging, 
 the Italian lowered his sword, and begged leave, 
 with an air of curiosity, to enquire the cause of 
 their quarrel. " It is because you assume my 
 arms," said the Frenchman. " If that is all," 
 replied the Italian, " you are mistaken ; youi 
 arms bear a bull's head, and mine a cow's." 
 The disputants parted without farther contro- 
 versy. 
 
 To agree promptly to a proposal, in general, 
 and to negative it by particular difficulties in car- 
 rying it into effect, is one of the most finished 
 tricks of diplomacy. It has often saved at once 
 the honour and the life of royal and princely 
 challengers. An amusing instance of it occurred 
 in the case of a message which passed between 
 Akenside the poet, and one Ballow, a lawyer and 
 a wit. No apology could be obtained in any 
 111
 
 OP BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 shape, and the demand of it would not be fore- 
 gone. But a meeting was avoided by a resolu- 
 tion from which neither would depart, that one 
 would not fight in the morning, nor the other in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 When a person goes to visit curious places, or 
 voyages into other countries, or falls among par- 
 ticularly instructive people, he should make it 
 his business to gather all the information which 
 circumstances will permit him to elicit, and to 
 lay it up for use in general and mixed company. 
 " I observe in all my travels," says Montaigne, 
 "this custom, ever to learn something from the 
 information of those with whom I confer (which 
 is the best school of all others), and to put my 
 company upon those subjects they are best able 
 to speak of." Every one, by his profession or 
 the accidents of his life, is peculiarly fitted to 
 discourse upon some particular topics. 
 
 Navita de ventis, de lauris narrat arator, 
 Ememorat miles vulnera, pastor oves. Prop. 
 
 112
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 On the contrary, vanity often prompts men to 
 talk of what they know nothing about, to those 
 persons who from their course of business must 
 know it thoroughly, instead of listening to them 
 and gratifying them while they instruct them- 
 selves. Such men incur the censure which Ar- 
 chidamus passed on Periander, " That he had 
 quitted the glory of being an excellent physician 
 to gain the repute of a very bad poet." The 
 true art both of improvement and of courtesy is, 
 to put people upon talking of that with which 
 they are known to be most familiar. These 
 remarks apply only to those occasional encoun- 
 ters which are out of the ordinary conditions of 
 the drawing-room. On the platform of general 
 society, where you meet a man simply en gentil- 
 homme^ you are to lay aside all recollection of 
 such peculiarities, to merge the professional in 
 the general character, and to treat persons as if 
 they were equally conversant with every branch 
 p 113
 
 OF BEHAVIOUR. 
 
 of knowledge. We must, of course, except those 
 cases where there is a manifest desire to display 
 a particular ' hobby.' Every one who approached 
 Mr. Erskine felt it his duty, I believe, to talk 
 about trial by jury. 
 
 The conferring of a benefit is an act that re- 
 quires great skill and care. To most men, the 
 acceptance of an advantage carries with it so 
 instinctive a sense of inferiority, that if the deed 
 be accompanied by a haughty or contemptuous 
 manner, it will certainly provoke a smothered 
 resentment. Count Hamilton remarks of De 
 Grammont, who was generous even to extrava- 
 gance, that " his manner of conferring a favour, 
 exceeded even the favour itself." An air of in- 
 difference, and the tone of a man who seems un- 
 conscious that he has done a kindness, are neces- 
 sary to give full effect to liberality. If there be 
 apparent, a design to extort gratitude, it will 
 inevitably excite disgust and hatred. 
 114
 
 TITLE V. 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 The world is nothing but babble. — Montaigne. 
 
 Conversation is the field to which a ma* .«f 
 sense instinctively resorts for his best displays 
 and noblest triumphs; it is that on which the 
 pretensions of a fool are most certain to be de- 
 tected. As long as the exhibition is confined to 
 manner, "many a blockhead," as Sir Fopling 
 expresses it, " varnished over with good-breed- 
 ing, makes a tolerable show ;" and if that philo- 
 sopher was right who refused to pronounce upon 
 the happiness of a man until he was dead, we 
 should with equal propriety answer to any en- 
 quiry about the abilities of a stranger, " wait till 
 he has spoken." Whatever may be the impor- 
 115
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 tance of manner and of exterior, he who con- 
 verses the best, will always be the most admired 
 and the most successful. " When we have taken 
 our best pains about the outside," says Lady 
 Easy, " 'tis the beauty of the mind alone that 
 gives us lasting value." 
 
 The fashionable talk that prevails at balls and 
 parties, is, to be sure, a frivolous thing enough. 
 To give any suggestions for its conduct would be 
 to define the limits of a summer cloud, or to an- 
 alyze its colours which are changing while we 
 gaze. We may ask now, as it was asked a cen- 
 tury ago in the " Careless Husband," " What 's 
 half the conversation of most of the fine young 
 people about town but a perpetual affectation of 
 appearing foremost in the knowledge of manners, 
 new modes, and scandal 1 " We may apply to it 
 the language in which Scaliger described the 
 style of Ramus, " a river of words and a drop 
 of intellect." It is vain to hope for any improve- 
 ment in this matter ; this mode is sustained by 
 116
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 persons whose understandings cannot reach to 
 anything better, — whose minds are " a kind of 
 yesty collection, which carries them through the 
 most fanned and winnowed opinions" and through 
 none other. This fashionable, drawing-room chat, 
 is of a sort resembling that described by Gellms 
 — "eorum orationem bene existimatum est in oro 
 nasci, non in pectore" — it is born upon the lips 
 and not within the breast. Leves, et futiles, et 
 importuni locutores, quique nullo rerum pondere 
 innixi verbis humidis et lapsantibus difflucent; 
 light orators, who on the current of a soft and 
 fluent loquacity, float along, unfreighted with the 
 weight of thoughts. 
 
 But even among the gayest people of mode 
 there is room, at certain seasons, for a better 
 style, and among well-bred men of sense and 
 dignity, the conversation that usually prevails is 
 of a kind to require high talents and deep culti- 
 vation. An admirable passage in St. Evremond 
 happily sets forth, in brief, most of the consi- 
 117
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 derations needful to be regarded by a converse!. 
 '* In this kind of commerce," says he, " with 
 our equals and inferiors, we should use an easi- 
 ness of address, obliging manners, a ready and 
 respectful attention to what they utter ; and avoid 
 a display of superiority, either of our talents or 
 acquisitions ; which caution will defend us from 
 the hate and envy of those with whom we asso- 
 ciate. Those among whom we use expressions 
 cf inattention and contempt, or pronounce senti- 
 ments with too much warmth and predilection, 
 will either avoid us, or seek occasion to injure us 
 by secret acts of malevolence, excited by painful 
 feelings of inferiority. Such is the nature of 
 man. On the contrary, when we assume no airs 
 of importance, those who know our capacities, 
 and those who are made acquainted with them 
 afterwards, esteem our acquaintance more, and 
 view our talents at a higher rate, than if we had 
 endeavoured to blazon them ourselves. To gain 
 the good-will of those with whom we converse, 
 118
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 the infallible method is, to be the cause of their 
 displaying the acquisitions which they possess, 
 and to keep our own back. Self-love, here, is 
 gratified in every speaker ; and he values us as 
 the means of making himself more conspicuous 
 and important." 
 
 Avoid opposition and argument in conversa- 
 tion. Rarely controvert opinions ; never contra- 
 dict sentiments. The expression of a feeling 
 should be received as a fact which is not the 
 subject of confutation. Those who wrangle in 
 company render themselves odious by disturbing 
 the equanimity of their companion, and compel- 
 ling him to defend and give a reason for his 
 opinion, when perhaps he is neither capable nor 
 inclined to do it. What would be thought of the 
 courtesy of the person who should say to one 
 who had just made a remark, " Now, Sir, I will 
 show you that you are a fool, and that the ob- 
 servation which you have uttered, is nonsense" 1 
 Yet that is the amount of attacking what anothei 
 119
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 has said, and applying yourself to confute it. If 
 your companion has been so ill-bred as to assail 
 your remark directly, you should not defend it, 
 but receive his assault in silence, and presently 
 pass on to something else. Of course, this does 
 not apply to a case where two friends, alone, are 
 discussing a subject for the sake of truth. 
 
 Opposite to this, lies the stupid fault of always 
 acquiescing in what another says, and adopting 
 that opinion not only as the truth, but as the 
 whole truth upon the subject. It is very annoy- 
 ing to feel that you are conversing with one who 
 has no mental identity, and whose fungus-like 
 thoughts have no existence save as they cling to 
 your mind. We feel ourselves degraded by the 
 nearness of a thing so pitiable. It was well said 
 by Chevreau that there were two classes of men 
 whose conversation was equally disagreeable ; 
 those who always contradicted and disputed 
 what you said ; and those who agreed and as- 
 sented so humbly and yieldingly that one felt 
 120
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 inclined to cry out with the enraged orator to his 
 
 quiet antagonist, " Do contradict me, to prove 
 
 that we are two persons." 
 
 In conversation, taste is worth more than talent. 
 
 The ability to employ power well, is the best 
 
 sort of power. We meet with hundreds of men 
 
 who if they showed half their wit and genius 
 
 better disposed and put, would go for a great deal 
 
 more than they do. The manner of exhibition is 
 
 as much to be studied as the matter which is to 
 
 be exhibited ; for full as much depends on it. 
 
 We encounter many in relation to whom we feel 
 
 what Quinctilian says of Seneca, " velles cum 
 
 suo ingenio dixisse, alieno judicio," — would that 
 
 he used his own genius with another's judgment. 
 
 Not to display too much is as important as to 
 
 have enough. That which 
 
 Fatigues the ring, 
 Flaunts, and goes down an unregarded thing. 
 
 There are many persons whose conversational 
 Q 121
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 merit might be likened to an orifice, which be- 
 comes greater, the more you take away. 
 
 In conversation, a well-bred man should em- 
 ploy learning, as Cicero says that metaphors 
 should be used ; which he likens to virgins, that 
 should exhibit themselves sparingly and with 
 reserve, but should appear without any affecta- 
 tion. Much learning can scarcely be displayed 
 in any manner without the charge of pedantry. 
 Yet a certain degree of knowledge is conve- 
 nient in every station. A courtier presented Sir 
 Matthew Dekker to King George the Second, as 
 the distinguished author of St. Matthew's gospel. 
 
 Men who tell stories briefly and well, are gene- 
 rally liked. But to tell nothing else than stories, 
 as many do, is not only likely to be tiresome, but 
 to be offensive. A professional raconteur is in 
 danger of wounding the self-love of his auditors, 
 who do not like to be shadowed and silenced by 
 a man who produces nothing from his own mind, 
 and who conquers by no superior display of in- 
 123
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 tellect, but by a mere trick of memory. That 
 character is more agreeable in one who by age, 
 or distinction vindicated in some other field, is an 
 admitted superior, than in one who is the equal 
 and rival of all the company. Menage, whose 
 reading was various and whose memory was im- 
 mense, was one day entertaining some ladies with 
 a variety of stories which he had picked out of 
 books. After he had gone on for some time, Ma- 
 dame Rambouillet, who Avas familiar with this 
 method of conversation on his part, suddenly 
 called out, " This is all very fine. Sir, but give 
 us now immediately something of your own in- 
 vention." The famous Segrais had this habit sc 
 strongly that some one said of him that he only 
 wanted winding up, in order to go for a fortnight. 
 Place and time should be carefully considered 
 in judging of the fitness of relating anecdotes. 
 There are many seasons at which it is w^holly 
 unbecoming. At a large evening party it should 
 be entirely avoided. The demands on manner 
 123
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 are at such times so'constant and quickly-chang- 
 ing-, that the attention ought not to be fixed for 
 any length of time ; and people are all so ani- 
 mated and excited that they want to talk and 
 look, and not listen. For the same reason, long 
 discourses and harangues are to be avoided at 
 such scenes. In a tete-a-tete, or an evening visit, 
 or after dinner, pleasant stories are pleasing ; but 
 still, even then, reference is to be had to the tone 
 and humour of the company. If persons are in 
 a brisk mood and want to talk, you will not gra- 
 tify them by compelling them to listen ; if they 
 are dull and inclined to be taciturn, they will be 
 glad to be relieved from the labour of conversing. 
 The minute circumstantiality of those narrators 
 who exhibit every particular of an event, with 
 the truth and tastelessness of a Chinese repre- 
 sentation, is excessively annoying. The salient 
 mirth of the audience is eager to pounce upon 
 the point of the story ; and the stupid details that 
 124
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 keep them back, fret them as much as the leash 
 chafes the grey-hound when the hare is in sight. 
 This accuracy is one of the superstitions of age. 
 The old deal with the commonest incidents as 
 the rabbins did with the language of Scripture, 
 giving to every word and letter the significance 
 of a divine oracle ; or as the Augustin monks 
 were wont to dwell on the minutest expletives of 
 style in the Evangely, as if they were the most 
 important parts of the narration. One of this 
 fraternity, discoursing on that passage where it 
 is said that the servants of the High Priest 
 warmed themselves, addressed his audience with 
 great solemnity in these words : " My brethren, 
 ye are to notice that the Evangelist is not con- 
 tent to mention this circumstance merely as an 
 historian would, by the words ' calefaciebant 
 se,' they warmed themselves ; but adds, in the 
 spirit of a philosopher, ' quia frigus erat,' be- 
 cause it was cold." It was said of Pliny's ac- 
 count of his villas, that it was written with as 
 125
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 much minuteness of detail as if Pliny had in- 
 tended to put them up to sale. This auctioneer 
 style of description may often be met with among 
 the aged. 
 
 The narrator of a story should keep a keen eye 
 upon his company, and prolong or shorten his 
 details according to the temper of uneasiness or 
 acquiescence which he perceives them display. 
 An orator, during the troubles of the league in 
 France, began a discourse which he said he 
 would divide into thirteen heads ; but perceiving 
 a murmur of discontent among his audience at 
 this fearful announcement, he immediately con- 
 tinued with great readiness of mind, " I shall at 
 present, however, omit a dozen of them." 
 
 Some persons have an awkward habit of re- 
 peating the most striking parts of a story, espe- 
 cially the main point, if it has taken greatly the 
 first time. This is in very bad taste, and always 
 excites disgust. In most cases, the story pleased 
 the first time, only because it was unexpected. 
 V26
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 One of the first virtues of conversation is to 
 be perspicuous and intelligible. Those quaint 
 and affected constructions, and high-flown, book- 
 ish phrases, in which some indulge, to the em- 
 barrassment of those they talk to, are in bad taste 
 and should be avoided. There have indeed at 
 times appeared writers and schools of rhetoric 
 who cultivated obscurity as a merit. Lycophron 
 publicly declared that he would hang himself if 
 any one was found who could understand his 
 poem of Cassandra. A man of good sense will 
 always make a point of using the plainest and 
 simplest words that will convey his meaning; 
 and will bear in mind that his principal or only 
 business is to lodge his idea in the mind of his 
 hearer. The same remark applies to distinctness 
 of articulation; and Hannah More has justly ob* 
 served that to speak so that people can hear you 
 is one of the minor virtues. 
 
 Those who have generosity enough to care for 
 the feelings of others, or self-regard enough to 
 127
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 covet good-will, will be careful to avoid every 
 display of wit which wounds another. It is a 
 happy circumstance for the honour of our nature, 
 and one very characteristical of the kindness of 
 Providence, that a display of the easiest moral 
 virtues will generally bring us more popularity 
 than the exhibition of the greatest talents with- 
 out them. 
 
 Parts may be praised, good nature is ador'd; 
 Then draw your wit as seldom as your sword, 
 And never on the weak. 
 
 Those who scatter brilliant jibes without caring 
 whom they wound, are as unwise as they are un- 
 kind. Those sharp little sarcasms that bear a 
 sting in their words, rankle long, sometimes for- 
 ever, in the mind, and fester often into a fatal 
 hatred never to be abated. 
 
 Hoerit lateri Icthalis arundo. — Virg. 
 
 If from among the various anecdotes that are 
 told, illustrative of the manners of Louis XIV., 
 we were to select that which places his claim to 
 128
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 thorough breeding and refinement on the highest 
 eminence of certainty, we should choose a story 
 that is thus related by one of the best historians 
 of his country. The king one day entertained a 
 part}'' of hrs courtiers with the relation of a cir- 
 cumstance which he had announced as extremely 
 laughable ; but on the entrance of Prince Ar- 
 magnac, he suppressed a fine repartee, which con- 
 stituted the merit of the story. The whole circle 
 felt themselves disappointed, which was seldom 
 the case when his majesty promised them enter- 
 tainment, and were therefore surprised. The 
 king observed it, but said nothing till the prince 
 departed. "Now, gentlemen, I'll make you 
 laugh," said he, and accordingly gave them the 
 anecdote unmutilated, which produced in a high 
 degree, the proposed effect. " You see," sub- 
 joined Louis, "there was an oblique stroke that 
 would have affected the prince, and I suppressed 
 it, to prevent his being embarrassed ; for I would 
 rather lose the reputation of the best ban mot that 
 B 129
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 was ever uttered, than give a moment's pain to 
 any individual." 
 
 To avoid wounding the feelings of another, is 
 the key to almost every problem of manners that 
 can be proposed ; and he who will always regu- 
 late his sayings and doings by that principle, 
 may chance to break some conventional rule, but 
 will rarely violate any of the essentials of good- 
 breeding. Judgment and attention are as neces- 
 sary to fulfil this precept, as the disposition ; for, 
 by inadvertence or folly, as much pain may be 
 given as by designed malevolence. An instance 
 of this occurred when the beautiful but silly 
 Countess of Coventry w?s talking to George the 
 Second, towards the close of that monarch's 
 reign, about shows, and remarked that the sight 
 which she was most anxious to see was a corona- 
 tion. 
 
 That temper which is termed absence of mind 
 often leads very amiable men to do unconsciously 
 what the boldest malice would not dare. Bishop 
 130
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 Burnet, who was one of the most distrait men in 
 England, was invited to dine with Prince Eu- 
 gene soon after his arrival in England ; and his 
 host, knowing the bishop's humour, exhorted 
 him to abstain very carefully from any allusion 
 to the family disasters of the distinguished for- 
 eigner, and the bishop thereupon discreetly re- 
 solved to hold his tongue altogether during the 
 repast. The prince, however, who had heard of 
 Burnet, asked him how long it was since he had 
 been in France. The Doctor, somewhat embar- 
 rassed by being obliged to deviate from the rule 
 he had appointed for himself, replied, hurriedly, 
 that he was in France in the same year that the 
 Countess of Soissons was imprisoned for poison- 
 ing a person. The Countess, it will be remem- 
 bered, was the Prince's mother. 
 
 The same divine one day dining with his pa- 
 troness, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, com- 
 pared the Duke who had been deprived of his 
 places by the Court, to Belisarius. The Duchess 
 131
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 asked what was the principal cause of the down- 
 fal of the latter. " Ah, madam," replied Burnet, 
 *' he had such a brimstone of a wife ! " The 
 appropriateness of this remark to Pope's Atossa 
 may readily be conceived. 
 
 There are many persons, and they are chiefly 
 to be found among- elderly unmarried women 
 whose breasts are full of the gall of inhuman 
 bitterness, who not only disregard wholly that 
 attention to the feelings of others which we have 
 spoken of, but who appear to think that malice 
 and rudeness are the best or only wit. There are 
 many writers and talkers whose whole staple of 
 wit is malevolence ; and Boileau happily dis- 
 closed the distinction which separated legitimate 
 satire from mere abuse, when he replied to some 
 one who remarked that Racine was his equal in 
 satire, " You should rather have said that he 
 is my superior in malice." That accomplished 
 poet, whose temper was as amiable as his pen 
 was keen, elegantly described the pleasant and 
 132
 
 COWERS A TIO\. 
 
 affable discourse which he used, oy saying that 
 it had neither claws nor talons.* It is that style 
 which a well-bred man should endeavour to 
 attain. 
 
 When you are in one company, you should 
 avoid exclusive panegyrics of others, or eulogies 
 of the pleasantness of other places, times, or peo- 
 ple. That always implies some contempt or dis- 
 like of those you are with ; and it is apt to give 
 great offence. A Frenchman often lamented his 
 first wife in the presence of his second, w^ho at 
 length said to him with a most pardonable and 
 natural severity, " Monsieur, je vous assure qu'il 
 n'y a personne qui la regrette plus que moi." 
 
 Vanity is a most offensive thing in conversa- 
 tion, for many reasons, one of which is ' well 
 stated by Walpole, — " because it wounds one's 
 own vanity." But of the various sorts which 
 
 * Very opposite is the manner of that large class who con- 
 stitute 
 
 "The would-be wits, and can't be gentlemen." — Beppo. 
 133
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 life displays, perhaps the cant and vanity of au- 
 thorship is the most disgusting. Every one 
 whose fate it has been to be at all "dipped in 
 ink," — and in this age and country, authorial 
 honours are as rife as civic ones, — should be 
 most carefully on his guard to banish from his 
 manner and talk, all traces of the pen. In this 
 matter, as in many others, Scott was a great 
 model. It was said of Swift, who abhorred the 
 cant of religion, that one might have lived under 
 the same roof with him for a month without dis- 
 covering that he ever said his prayers ; and it is 
 equally certain that one might have resided a 
 year with Scott, without guessing that he had 
 ever written a book. It was very accurately 
 observed of Byron and Scott, that the former 
 detested and the latter despised, the cant of 
 authorship. 
 
 There are some ludicrous anecdotes told of the 
 vanity of small geniuses in various countries, 
 Santeul, in France, who wrote moderate poetry, 
 134
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 which has long since gone to its place, used to 
 say when he had finished any favourite piece, 
 *' Now I will go, and put chains all along the 
 bridges of the town, to prevent my brother bards 
 from drov(;'ning themselves." Dennis once wrote 
 a play called " Liberty Asserted," which became 
 popular on account of the virulent abuse of the 
 French nation with which it abounded, and the 
 author thought it was of such political conse- 
 quence, that Louis XIV. would certainly stipu- 
 late, whenever peace was to be concluded, that 
 the writer should be delivered up to his resent- 
 ment. Under this apprehension he applied to the 
 Duke of Marlborough for his good offices when 
 the treaty of Utrecht was in agitation. The Duke 
 very gravely told him that his interest with the 
 persons then in the ministry was small, but that 
 he hoped the danger was not so great as he ima- 
 gined ; for that he himself had made no applica- 
 tion for security in the articles of peace, and yet 
 he could not help thinking that he had done the 
 136
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 French king almost as much harm as Mr. Dennis 
 had done. 
 
 The same author being once on a visit to a 
 friend who lived on the coast of Sussex, saw a 
 ship making towards the land. Taking it into his 
 head that this was a French vessel coming to 
 seize him, he exclaimed, that he was betrayed, 
 and instantly made the best of his way to Lon*- 
 don, without taking leave of his host. Might 
 we not conjecture that if the fears which occa- 
 sioned the precipitate flight of a distinguished 
 modern English poet from Italy, to escape the 
 wrath of Napoleon, were not wholly suggested 
 by similar vanity, they were at least largely ex- 
 aggerated by such a quality ] * 
 
 The vanity of intimating that others value yon 
 highly, or esteem jou affectionately, is extremely 
 paltry and absurd. To let it be known that a dis- 
 
 * See the " Biograpliia Literaria" for Coleridge's own state- 
 ment of the affair, and Cottle's " Recollections of Coleridge" 
 for the strange details of the escape. 
 
 13G
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 tinguished man asked their opinion on a certain 
 point, or expressed such an opinion as to their 
 character or abilities, is a favourite mode of self- 
 puffing among shallow parasites ; but as every- 
 body sees that they themselves pull the puppets 
 which thus pay them homage, it generally goes 
 for nothing. You have such a contempt for the 
 character of a man who descends to that little- 
 ness, that you do not hesitate to pronounce him a 
 liar, to boot. A fanatic in Germany once went to 
 the expense of having a plate engraved, in which 
 he was represented kneeling before a crucifix, 
 with a label from his mouth, " Lord Jesus, do 
 you love me 3" and from the mouth of Jesus 
 proceeded another label, "Yes, most illustrious, 
 most excellent, and most learned Sigerus, crowned 
 poet of his Imperial Majesty, and most worthy 
 rector of the University of Wittenberg, yes, I 
 love you." 
 
 Whatever may be your company, always talk 
 your best, and endeavour as far as is in youi 
 s 137
 
 COI^VERSATION. 
 
 power, to conciliate and please those who are 
 near you. Dr. Johnson, who was admitted to 
 have been or years the best talker in England, 
 said that he had attained his proficiency by re- 
 solving in early life always to speak in the most 
 correct and elegant form of words which he could 
 construct, and never to utter anything in a negli- 
 gent or slovenly style. Strive to gain the good 
 opinion of those around you, but do not value 
 that opinion too highly. Much of the awkward- 
 ness and nervousness of young persons, and 
 many of their failures, proceed from their feeling 
 too high a respect for others, and too much defe- 
 rence to their presence. Exhibit outward respect 
 to those whom you wish to gain ; but in your 
 own mind, fear no man. Hold yourself equal to 
 any man and to anything; accustom yourself to 
 scrutinize and confute the opinions of others, in 
 order that you may have confidence when you are 
 wuth them. Attach as great a value as you please 
 to the remarks of others, as truths, but little to 
 138
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 them as opinions. Venerate no man's intellect; 
 worship no man's understanding. Appreciate 
 their power; but do not bow before their minds. 
 A gentleman should always carry a certain sin- 
 cerity and truth into his compliments and even 
 his lightest flattery. He owes it as well to the 
 dignity of his understanding, as to his moral 
 principle, not to indulge in the habitual use of 
 language that is senseless or false. Many per- 
 sons in society appear to look upon the language 
 of compliment as a style of phrase beyond the 
 considerations of reason and morality. Such per- 
 sons remind one of the shepherd described by an 
 Italian writer, as living in a part of the country 
 in the kingdom of Naples which was greatly in- 
 fested with robbers and murderers. At confes- 
 sion, he acknowledged with much sorrow and 
 contrition, that once on a fast-day he had drunk 
 some drops of milk. " Does your conscience 
 upbraid you with no other wickedness?" said 
 the confessor. " None," replied the penitent. 
 139
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 "Did you never join any of your countrymen in 
 Bobbmg and murdering passenger's 1 " " O yes ! 
 very often, good father ! " said the other ; " but 
 we do not look upon that as a matter of con- 
 science." 
 
 On the other hand, those run into an opposite 
 and equally faulty extreme who oppose con- 
 science to every form of words which leaves 
 truth in quest of courtesy. Erroneously con- 
 ceiving that all is false that is not literal, they 
 refuse to deviate from preciseness, whatever may 
 be the compulsion of politeness or pleasure. We 
 debate no question of morals with these people, 
 for we are as devoted advocates of truth as they 
 are ; it is a mistake of judgment which we charge 
 upon them. A man may quit exactness without 
 leaving truth, and he may adhere to it without 
 gaining truth. " The vice of lying," says St. 
 Evremond, "does not consist properly in its op- 
 Dosition to fact. We may say many things which 
 are not facts without incurring the guilt and 
 140
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 shame of a lie. Compliments are white lies; 
 and not only permitted, but enforced by custom. 
 Such modes of speech are not considered in their 
 literal sense ; but as forms of civility. The vice 
 of lying really consists in conveying- a false 
 idea." 
 
 Readiness in contriving, and grace in offering, 
 compliments, are talents very necessary to be had 
 by a man of the world. If he is disinclined to 
 practise them merely for rendering himself agree- 
 able, and for gratifying harmlessly those whom 
 he frequents, he should have them at command 
 for parrying unpleasant attacks and questions, 
 and turning aside disagreeable subjects of con- 
 versation. Very often, an onset, prompted by ill- 
 will or wantonness, is made upon one,, or enqui- 
 ries of a sort which are not liked, are directed, 
 and no other method of shunning the inconve- 
 nience can be found, than to give the discourse a 
 turn highly flattering to the party proposing it, 
 A lady attacked the Siamese ambassador at the 
 141
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 French court, on account of the people of his 
 nation having so many wives, while those of her 
 own had but one. " Madam," he replied, " could 
 we find in our country, any one woman of the 
 beauty, graces and intelligence of your ladyship, 
 we also should never have more than one wife.'* 
 Tiie use of epithets is an accurate test of good 
 sense and of good-breeding. A. profusion of them, 
 and of strong ones particularly, is a vice in style ; 
 and a defective style always argues a defective 
 mind. To select and apply them well is proof 
 of a discriminating intellect. Coleridge used to 
 tell a story of his standing near a waterfall 
 among the Alps, and looking at it in silence, 
 while a Londoner whom he did not know, was 
 engaged in the same occupation. After some 
 time, the stranger turned towards him, and said, 
 "how majestic it is!" The poet laid his hand 
 upon his shoulder; "My friend," said he, "you 
 have employed the word which is of all others 
 143
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 the most appropriate." " Yes," cried the cock- 
 ney, gratified by a commendation which he did 
 not understand, " yes, it is really beautiful ! " . . . 
 Scaliger said that he once heard a man who saw 
 the ocean for the first time, pronounce it "a 
 pretty thing." 
 
 But however reason may be involved in the 
 use of such words, violent adjectives are deci- 
 dedly in bad ton. The expressions, " elegant," 
 "splendid," "noble," &c., doul-tless have a 
 fitness to certain subjects, and in certain places 
 and times ; but in society their use can rarely be 
 consistent with perfectly good taste. The safest 
 word is good. Tiiat is the most frequent word in 
 the circles of high fashion; it is almost always 
 appropriate, and it is particularly consistent with 
 that composure and calmness which characterize 
 distinguished breeding. At present, the collo- 
 quial language of England is, in the department 
 of adjectives, pretty nearly reduced to good for 
 things, and nice for persons. 
 143
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 In conveying sentiments and impressions, a 
 vast deal depends on the choice of words. There 
 's a suggestiveness of good or ill in words whose 
 direct sense does not involve matter of feeling at 
 all. They have a meaning side-ways, as well as 
 directly. The Arabians have an anecdote illus- 
 trative of thii?. The caliph Abu Almansor sent 
 for two astrologers to cast his horoscope. The 
 first, being admitted, went through a good deal 
 of jugglery, and concluded by saying that all the 
 caliph's rivals would die before him : the caliph 
 dismissed him without recompense. The other, 
 coming in and going through similar tricks, said 
 that the caliph would outlive all other aspirants 
 to the caliphate. He was sent away richly re- 
 warded. 
 
 As an illustration of what we mean, a gentle- 
 man, if he had occasion to notice any defect or 
 inferiority, in a matter of any delicacy, would 
 say that the thing in question was " less excel- 
 144
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 lent" or " less becoming," and not that it was 
 "nriore unbecoming" or "more disagreeable." 
 
 Some persons have a plebeian rage of con- 
 versing and being seen to converse with people 
 of eminence ; — like the low fellow who boasted 
 that the king had spoken to him ; and being 
 asked what his majesty had said, replied, " He 
 bade me stand out of his way." There are par' 
 venus who will put up with a great deal of con- 
 tempt, and will even run the risk of offending the 
 person concerned, in order to be observed walk- 
 ing half a square or talking intimately with some 
 one of distinction in fashion or politics. 
 
 When a man goes into compan}^, he should 
 leave behind him all professional peculiarities of 
 mind and manners. That, indeed, constituted 
 Dr. Johnson's notion of a gentleman; and as far 
 as negatives go, the notion was correct. It is in 
 bad taste, particularly, to employ technical or pro- 
 fessional terms in general conversation. Young 
 physicians and lawyers often commit that error. 
 T 145
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 The most eminent members of those occupations 
 are the most free from it; for the reason, that the 
 most eminent have the most sense. 
 
 The improvising of quotations, or at least au- 
 thorities, is often practised by unscrupulous peo- 
 ple in conversation. If a man produces such a 
 sham sentence or opinion against you in an argu- 
 ment, you cannot very well tell him that he lies ; 
 the best thing, therefore, for you to do is to tell 
 your friend that if he had read on a little farther 
 ne would have found that his author restricted 
 the remark that was cited, to something not in- 
 volved in that debate ; or to improvise something 
 precisely the reverse of his quotation, and if 
 asked for the exact place whence the passage was 
 taken, to say that it was on the next page to his 
 quotation. 
 
 Young men often, through real modesty, put 
 forth their remarks in the form of personal opin- 
 ions ; as, with the introduction of, " I think so- 
 and-so," or, " Now, I, for my part, have found it 
 146
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 Otherwise." This is generally prompted by hu- 
 mility ; and yet it has always an air of arrogance. 
 The persons who employ such phrases, mean to 
 shrink from affirming a fact into expressing a no- 
 tion, but are taken to be designing to extend an 
 opinion into an affirmance of a fact. 
 
 The weather is a topic of conversation against 
 which wit has often been directed. Yet it forms, 
 on many occasions, as harmless and as entertain- 
 ing a subject of remark, as almost any other that 
 is used. At those times, and in the chronicle of 
 society they are not unfrequent, when people talk, 
 confessedly, only for talk's sake, a matter so 
 completely impersonal, and so wholly free from 
 the possibility of offence, certainly possesses a 
 strong recommendation. We have Johnson's own 
 confession that his notorious intolerance of that 
 topic proceeded chiefly from the vanity of an in- 
 tellect that scorned so barren and so trite a sub- 
 ject. In one of the latest letters which he wrote 
 to Mrs. Thrale, in the midst of age and illness, 
 147
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 he says, " I am at length reduced to talk about 
 the weather; pride must have its fall." In his 
 brighter days of ever-ready wisdom, he was not 
 wont to be familiar with those predicaments of 
 society whose exigencies, alone, constitute the 
 sufficient apology for such a style. Walpole de- 
 fends the atmosphere upon broader ground. " To 
 talk of the weather is sometimes ridiculed," says 
 he ; " but not wisely, for the weather is so im- 
 portant that our health and bread depend upon 
 it. The existence of numerous classes of per- 
 sons depends on the weather; and it is idle to 
 deny that the spirits of all men are affected by 
 the clouds. The stoutest man cannot take exer- 
 cise on a rainy day, and must feel ennui because 
 he cannot divide his time as usual." 
 
 We remarked in a former page, that a gentle- 
 man should be fitted to cope all sorts and classes 
 of men, and that he should possess those accom- 
 plishments which are required for dealing with 
 the lowest and rudest as well as the most A^a^tly. 
 148
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 Swearing is one of those ornaments of character, 
 which he is ignorant of the world who has never 
 known, and of refinement who has often prac- 
 tised. On this principle, Christina, queen of 
 Sweden, who did not like to be ignorant of any- 
 thing, chose Peter Bourdelot, a physician and a 
 man of wit, at her court, to be her master in 
 swearing, he being reckoned the most expert man 
 of his time in this sort of ejaculation; and she 
 toolc regular lessons and exercises, until she had 
 attained as great proficience as her distinguished 
 rival on the throne of England. The Honourable 
 William Pole Tylney Long Wellesley, whose 
 peculiar notions of education we have already 
 alluded to, considered swearing as the best re- 
 medy against lying, and ordered his children to 
 cultivate it for that purpose. He wrote to his 
 wife from Paris, respecting one of his daughters, 
 " for correcting the faults of the little girl 1 would 
 recommend to you something similar to the 
 course I adopted with William, when I found 
 149
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 that he had a slight propensity to lying, the pa- 
 rent of all evil. You remember, I allowed him 
 to swear, in order to establish in his mind the 
 distinction between a vice and ' a venial fault.' " 
 He directed his children to swear when they 
 were in a passion, as the best outlet and relief. 
 Others, it would seem, have been of a similar 
 opinion. Boileau one day met the servant of a 
 friend of his w^io was often tormented with the 
 gout, and asked how he was. The man replied 
 that his master had had a severe recurrence of 
 his old malady. " He swears a good deal then," 
 observed Boileau, who knew that his temper was 
 quick. " yes, Sir," said the valet with great 
 simplicity, " it is the only comfort my poor mas- 
 ter has in his illness." Thurlow, it would ap- 
 pear, improved this his constitutional vice into 
 a similar advantage. He once had an attack of 
 the gout while he was staying at an inn, in the 
 country. A fellow-lodger who occupied an ad- 
 joining room, subsequently met Thurlow's bro« 
 150
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 ther who was a bishop, and told him that be was 
 happy to find that the Chancellor had become a 
 pious man, and that he sought for comfort in the 
 only quarter where it could be found. The pre- 
 late bent his head towards the ground, and said 
 he was obliged to confess that that part of his 
 brother's character was not what he could wish 
 it to be. " Indeed," said the other, " I think you 
 are mistaken : I recently lodged in the same 
 house with him when he was severely attacked 
 by gout, and I can testify that he did nothing but 
 call on the name of God and Jesus during the 
 whole of his illness." But whatever may have 
 been Thurlow's performances in that kind, they 
 never came up to those of his predecessor on the 
 woolsack, Henley, Lord Northington. 
 
 Henry IV. of France, when he swore, gene- 
 rally used the exclamation, " Ventre St. Gris . " 
 and the word greatly puzzled his courtiers, who 
 had not before heard of that saint. The origin 
 151
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 of this habit of the king's was, that some of his 
 pious guardians during his youth, fearing that he 
 might fall into the fashion of those times, •which 
 were greatly given to profane and blasphemous 
 oaths, permitted the young prince to employ the 
 words " Ventre St. Gris" in his moments of pas- 
 sion, as expressions that signified nothing at all. 
 Those who think, with Sir Fopling, " that 
 swearing and gaming are vices too genteel for a 
 shoemaker," and are inclined to rescue this noble 
 practice from the profanation of scavengers and 
 stable-boys, should, however, be very careful 
 that their selection of oaths is of a refined de- 
 scription ; for there is a fashion in this matter as 
 in others, and some ejaculations are as vulgar 
 as others are polite. Byron has pronounced 
 " damme" to be " Platonic blasphemy, the soul 
 of swearing," and has elsewhere declared " G — 
 d — n" to be "the nucleus 'of England's native 
 eloquence." Great as are the claims of those 
 expressions, I do not know whether they could 
 153
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 maintain their ground against certain other 
 phrases more in vogue. 
 
 A gentleman should never permit any phrase 
 that approaches to an oath, to escape his lips in 
 the presence of a lady. If any man employs a 
 profane expression in the drawing-room, his pre- 
 tensions to good-breeding are gone for ever. The 
 same reason extends to the society of men ad- 
 vanced in life ; and he would be singularly 
 defective in good taste, who should swear before 
 old persons, however irreligious their own habits 
 might be. The cause of profanity being oiFen- 
 sive in these cases is that it denotes an entire 
 absence of reverence and respect from the spirit 
 of him who uses it. 
 
 " A dearth of words," says Young, 
 
 " A woman need not fear. 
 But 'tis a task, indeed, to learn to hear: 
 In that, the skill of conversation lies; 
 That shows or makes you both polite and wise." 
 
 Listening is not only a point of good-breeding 
 and the best kind of flattery, but it is a method 
 u 153
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 of acquiring information which no man of judg- 
 ment will neglect. " This is a common vice in 
 conversation," says Montaigne, " that instead of 
 gathering observations from others, we make it 
 our whole business to lay ourselves open to them, 
 and are more concerned how to expose and set 
 out our own commodities, than how to increase 
 our stock by acquiring new. Silence, therefore, 
 and modesty, are very advantageous qualities in 
 conversation." But if a person gets knowledge 
 in this way from another, he should always give 
 him due credit for it; and not endeavour to sus- 
 tain himself in society upon the claims that 
 really belong to another. " It is a special trick 
 of low cunning," says Walpole, with a very 
 natural indignation, " to squeeze out knowledge 
 from a modest man, who is eminent in any sci- 
 ence ; and then to use it as legally acquired, and 
 pass the source in total silence." 
 
 That conversation is the best which furnishes 
 the most entertainment to the person conferred 
 154
 
 CONVERSATIOX. 
 
 with, and calls upon him for the least exercise 
 of mind. It is for this reason that argument and 
 difference are studiously avoided by well-bred 
 people ; they tax and tire. It should be the aim 
 of every one to utter his remarks in such a form 
 that the expression of assent or opposition need 
 not follow from him he speaks with. The inter- 
 jection of such phrases as, " You know," " You 
 see," " Don't you see 1 " " Do you understand ] " 
 and similar ones that stimulate the attention, and 
 demand an answer, ought to be avoided. Make 
 your observations in a calm and sedate way, 
 which your companion may attend to or not, as 
 he pleases, and let them go for what they are 
 worth. 
 
 That style of language which society pro- 
 nounces vulgar, and which grammarians call im- 
 pure, arises less from the use of new and unau- 
 thorized words, than from the employment of old 
 words in the wrong senses. For example, the 
 word * guess,' when properly applied, is a good 
 155
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 English word ; it becomes vulgar only in its 
 misappropriation. Use it a hundred times a-day 
 m its right sense, and you are a gentleman ; use 
 It once improperly, and you declare yourself a 
 Yankee. 
 
 Some variation has grown up in late years be- 
 tween England and America in the employment 
 of particular words. In certain cases, England 
 is right ; in certain others, America is nearer cor- 
 rectness. For example, in the use of the word 
 * clever,' the Americans are justified by the collo- 
 quial sense of the word for a long series of years 
 in the best age of British speech; the English 
 application of it to literary talent is a modern 
 cockneyism. On the other hand, the word ' fine' 
 as applied to persons, signifies properly a kind 
 of dignified beauty, and does not belong to the 
 expression of moral qualities. Any one who will 
 look into the dramatists and essayists from the 
 time of Charles II. to the close of that of Queen 
 156
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 Anne, will find that a " fine woman" invariably 
 meant a handsome one. 
 
 One must never permit the accidental and con- 
 ventional distinctions of rank, or even the more 
 interior considerations of refined manners and 
 cultivated taste, to control one's estimate of the 
 understanding, judgment and knowledge of per- 
 sons with whom one meets. . While we must 
 ascend into the loftiest heights to look for ele- 
 gance and delicacy, it will often happen that we 
 must go to low points and through obscure 
 passages to find wisdom and sense. Young men, 
 newly introduced to the regions of gay society, 
 so much overrate the value of the forms and 
 shows there brought before their eyes, that they 
 are apt to despise every man whose dress and 
 manner indicate that his life is alien to that 
 scene ; and they will settle the pretensions of a 
 great but uncourtly philosopher, with, " Poh ! he 
 is a low fellow; one never meets him in good 
 company." It is necessary to purge the mind 
 157
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 from such paltry estimates of human worth, and 
 to learn to respect intellect and learning under 
 the rudest garb and in the lowest station. " I 
 have been present," says Montaigne, " when Ihej 
 at the upper end of the chamber have been only 
 commending the beauty of the arras, or the 
 flavour of the wine, whilst many things tha* 
 have been very finely said, have been lost and 
 thrown away, at the lower end of the table." 
 
 There are few points in which men are mors 
 frequently deceived than in the estimate which 
 they form of the confidence and secresy of those 
 to whom they make communications. People 
 constantly make statements of delicacy and im- 
 portance which they expect will go no farther 
 and will never be repeated ; but the number of 
 those who regard the obligation of silence even 
 as to the most particular affairs, is extremely 
 small. How few are those who will hesitate to 
 divulge in the most unrestrained manner what- 
 ever they know relating to the condition of their 
 158
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 closest friends, though the utterance may involve 
 character and fortune very deeply ! Lord Boling- 
 broke used to say, " what is known to women is 
 known to the world ;" and in this matter, as in 
 many others, the mass of men have all the weak- 
 ness of women. Every one who would avoid 
 the serious consequences of the most common 
 treachery, should make it an unalterable rule of 
 conduct, never to repeat to any man that which 
 he is not willing should be told to all mankind. 
 Cautiousness, and the check of an habitual 
 self-control, should accompany the mind of every 
 one who launches out in animated conversation. 
 When the fancy is heated, and the tongue has 
 become restless through exercise, and there is 
 either a single listener or a circle, to reward dis- 
 play, nothing but resolute self-recollection can 
 prevent the utterance of much that had better 
 been left unsaid. A watchful eye and an atten- 
 tive ear are more profitable organs than a rapid 
 tongue. When you enter the society of profes- 
 159
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 sional diplomatists, you are struck by nothing 
 more than the paucity of their own observations, 
 and the constant keen attention which they give 
 to all that falls from others. No man conversed 
 better than Canning, and yet in society it was his 
 constant effort to set other people to talking and 
 thus to find out all their thoughts. Cromwell, in 
 an earlier age, and Burr, more lately in our own 
 country, practised the same art with great skill ; 
 and the remarks of Talleyrand in mixed society, 
 at least when we have seen him in later life, 
 were extremely few, and singularly cautious. 
 We have no intention of recommending this vice 
 of cautious watchfulness ; we quote the practice 
 of these extraordinary men to show wherein the 
 most common danger of speech consists ; and 
 while one should be far from following this art 
 to the injury of others, all may prudently guard 
 against others' exercise of it to their own injury. 
 That same reserve will enlarge the stores of 
 160
 
 CONVERSATION-. 
 
 knowledge, while it will save one from the De- 
 trayal of ignorance. 
 
 Young men, fresh from their books, are apt to 
 fancy that there is no other description of talent 
 than literary, and to treat with contempt those 
 who can present no proof of understanding save 
 that which is apart from literature. This is so 
 far from being true, that unquestionably the 
 highest order of intellect is that which looks at 
 things, directly, without what Young has termed 
 " the spectacles of books ;" and which has de- 
 rived its culture from action and not from solitary 
 meditation. The man of fashion will protest 
 against that criterion of sense, as well as the man 
 of business. "Our peevish poets, demn'em," 
 says Sir Fopling, " will allow no man wit who 
 does not play the fool like themselves, and show 
 it." Christopher North has said that all men 
 are poets except those that write verses ; and if 
 any one will pass from the society of authors and 
 men of letters, to the company of merchants, 
 V 161
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 politicians and lawyers, he will be tempted to 
 conclude that all men are wise except those who 
 write books. 
 
 A brazen boldness in appealing to men, and a 
 readiness in managing those feelings and apply- 
 ing those principles under which men act when 
 they act together, and which constitute the power 
 of cant, are the surest elements of success. The 
 arts which form a popular man may be summed 
 up in a line of Virgil : 
 
 »aSre ciere viros, martemque accendere cantu. 
 
 Cant, in its largest and most philosophical sense, 
 may be defined, a prevailing of the sentiment or 
 opinion of a coterie, class, time, or nation, over 
 the sincere and individual conclusions of the un- 
 derstanding. By far the larger portion of man- 
 kind are controlled in their opinions and actions 
 by these popular and talk-sustained notions ; they 
 feel certain of their conclusions only when they 
 can refer them to some one of these principles. 
 162
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 The judicious manaorement of these elements of 
 influence, and a skill in arguing from some deci- 
 sion of cant, to the point which it is wished to 
 prove, constitute the chief power of the dema- 
 gogue; and are the arts of those writers who 
 become the idols of their own age, and whose 
 fallacies the next century is engaged in un- 
 ravelling. 
 
 The world is at present, to use Falstaff's 
 phrase, so " given to lying," that a man of sin- 
 cerity and truth, will deceive and surprise the 
 men he deals with, as much as the man of false- 
 hood and trick. There is therefore little gained 
 by a departure from frankness and veracity. An 
 instance of this is the story of Cesar and the 
 pirates. A still more striking case occurred in 
 the life of the great Spanish captain, Spinola, 
 one of the three persons whom De Retz said 
 w^cre born generals. When he passed through 
 Paris, in 1604, he was invited to sup with Henry 
 the Fourth. Towards the end of the entertain- 
 163
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 ment, the king asked him what particular opera- 
 tions he meant to pursue in the next campaign, 
 and Spinola gave him a faithful relation of his 
 intentions ; telling him how and when he would 
 begin, where he would construct a bridge on the 
 Scheldt to lead over his army; and where he 
 proposed to erect a small fort. In a word, he did 
 not omit the minutest particular. Henry, who 
 was interested for the Dutch, immediately wrote 
 to the prince of Orange, an account of what he 
 had heard, telling him that he must take every- 
 thing in a quite contrary sense, as it was not pro- 
 bable that Spinola, who had no confidence in him, 
 would disclose his real designs. That able gene- 
 ral, however, did precisely everything he had 
 said. He had been free with Henry, because he 
 knew the monarch would not believe him. The 
 King afterwards used to say, " others deceive me 
 by speaking falsehood, but Spinola deceived me 
 by speaking the truth." 
 
 It is not by long and copious harangues, or the 
 164
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 display of profound theories of refinement, or by- 
 eloquent and sonorous sentences, that accomplish- 
 ment of mind is to be shown in society. It is 
 by a careful choice of words, and a frame of 
 «?peech denoting high polish of taste and great 
 maturity in use of language, that culture should 
 be exhibited. Refinement of education is seen 
 as much in what one does not say or do, as in 
 what one does utter or perform. " That slight 
 delicacy, which finishes while it seems but to 
 sketch," * is the result at which every gentleman 
 should aim in speech. Every one should avoid 
 displaying his mind and principles and character 
 entirely, but should let his remarks only open 
 glimpses to his understanding. For women this 
 precept is still more important. They are like 
 moss-roses^ and are most beautiful in spirit and 
 in intellect, when they are but half-unfolded. 
 
 Naked in nothing should a woman be ; 
 
 But veil her very wit with modesty; 
 
 Let man discover, let not her display, * 
 
 But yield her charms of mind with sweet delay. 
 
 • Walpole. — " Royal and Noble Authors." 
 165
 
 TITLE VI. 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 
 
 Our humbler province is to tend tlie fair. 
 Not a less pleasing, thougli less glorious care. 
 
 Port. 
 
 In point of fact, women certainly constitute 
 the most general consideration in life ; in point 
 of necessity, perhaps the most important one. 
 In every age and countr)% they occupy vastly 
 the larger portion of men's llioughts. The class 
 of common men dedicate to them their lives; 
 and to ambition, business or amusement, they 
 are but the truants of an hour. The boy dreams 
 of them as the ministers of a delight, dim but 
 delicious, 'inexplicable but immense; the man 
 thinks of them as the authors of a pleasure, 
 placid yet poignant; the old turn towards them 
 167
 
 WOMEN - COfRTSHIP AXD MARRIAGE. 
 
 as the sources of that comfort which is the only 
 paradise of age. To gain the favour of a race, 
 whose attractions are so universal and so various, 
 must be admitted to be an art that is worth somt 
 ttention. 
 Anciently, talismans and charms were relied 
 on for procuring love; "but it is now many 
 years," says Count Hamilton, " since the only 
 talismans for creating love are the charms of the 
 person beloved." By gracefully displaying those 
 advantages which nature has given, and by dili- 
 gently cultivating the graces which art can be- 
 stow, every man may reasonably hope to succeed 
 in whatever aspirations he may form in this 
 direction. In this field, moral qualities prevail 
 far more than physical ; and while few men are 
 possessed of those attractions of form and face 
 which sometimes are successful, all may hope to 
 acquire those qualifications of character, under- 
 163
 
 s 
 WOMEN :- COURTSHIP A.\D MARRIAGE. 
 
 Standing and manners, which more often win the 
 esteem of women. 
 
 A woman's common jndg-ment upon this mat- 
 ter has been accurately expressed by Gibber 
 when he places in a woman's mouth, the remark, 
 that " the only merit of a man is his sense, 
 while doubtless the greatest value of a woman 
 is her beauty." Beauty, unquestionably, is the 
 master-charm of that sex, and it is felt to be so 
 by themselves. But while we observe its value, 
 we cannot but ponder on its dangers. Their 
 glory is so often their ruin, that what they make 
 their boast were better called their curse. There 
 is a fatal truth in the remark of Mirabeau, — " les 
 avantages naturels, saos doute, et quoiqu'en dise 
 vulgairement, sont beaucoup plus precieux pour 
 un homrae que pour une femme, qu'ils vouent 
 presque toujours au malheur." 
 
 Most hard! in pleasing, their chief slory lies; 
 And yel from pleasing, their chief dangers rise. 
 
 A woman always values the reputation of 
 w 169
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 beauty more than any other thing. On that side 
 she is susceptible to the most conciliation and to 
 the greatest anger. A compliment, on that point, 
 is never forgotten ; an offence in that quarter is 
 never forgiven. There was an accurate notion 
 of the female character and mind possessed by 
 that man spoken of by Walpole, who being 
 called on to reconcile two of his female relations 
 who had quarrelled, enquired, " Have they called 
 one another uglyV "No." "Then I shall 
 soon make them friends again." 
 
 Beauty is the prescriptive attribute of that 
 sex, as fragrance is the glory of a flower. In 
 conversation with them, their inalienable title to 
 it must never be forgotten ; if they have it not in 
 reality, they must possess it by intendment of 
 courtesy. As " Serenity" is the only recognized 
 condition of those princes who in matter of fact 
 are probably the most passionate and stormy of 
 the hum.an kind, so fairness is the appellation 
 of every woman. No other ascription of virtues 
 170
 
 WOMEN: -COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 can make up for its denial. There is no woman 
 who is not offended by a compliment paid to her 
 talent at the expense of her beauty; and none 
 who is pleased by one paid to the neglect of her 
 beauty. The highest favour you can do any 
 woman living, is to extol her appearance. Doubt- 
 less, if the greatest female genius were to choose 
 from among the Muses which she would be, she 
 would prefer Erato, whose name was derived 
 from her beauty. / 
 
 By showing a woman that you feel the influ- 
 ence of her beauty, j'^ou gain an influence over 
 her vvhich nothing else can possibly give you. 
 She may be insensible to admiration which has 
 any other direction ; but she cannot choose but 
 feel an appeal to that point. Tell a woman that 
 she is lovely, fascinating, graceful, enchanting, 
 and she listens to you with coldness ; but tell 
 her that she is beautiful, and you have reached 
 her heart. Through that avenue, your presence 
 enters to her inmost spirit, and prevails. For 
 171
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 beauty is essentially spiritual, and it is the name 
 of all that is spiritual, and spirit is but substan- 
 tiated beauty; and there is a sympathy and a 
 connexion between spirit and beauty ; for they 
 are one. 
 
 One meets occasionally with women so ad- 
 mirable for lofty virtues, or respectable for sound 
 discretion, that one feels in one's own mind, that 
 the appreciation of such qualities is more truly 
 valuable than the applause of softer merits ; but 
 few women will think the same. The strongest 
 and most majestic character among them would 
 rather be loved than venerated. It has justly 
 been observed that most women will forgive a 
 liberty sooner than a slight. They will always 
 pardon and generally cherish the admiration 
 which is more warm than delicate. They are 
 more pleased with sincerity than offended at 
 ardour. A striking proof of this was furnished 
 in the case of Elizabeth of England, a person 
 to have given it confutation, if any could confute 
 172
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 it. When she once gave audience to some depu- 
 ties from the States General of Holland, a y^oung 
 man, belonging to the suite, on seeing the queen, 
 expressed, in very licentious terms, his admira- 
 tion of her personal charms. The ladies-in- 
 waiting, exhibiting great offence at the indeli- 
 cacy, the queen insisted on knowing what had 
 been said ; and so far from being offended at the 
 indecorum of his language, she was pleased 
 with its animation. When the ambassadors were 
 dismissed, each was presented with a chain of 
 gold worth eight hundred crowns ; but the gal- 
 lant who had found the queen so handsome, 
 received a chain worth sixteen hundred crowns, 
 which he ever afterwards wore around his neck. 
 The woman had overcome the queen. 
 
 Every one in his intercourse with women 
 should establish in his feelings and manner, a 
 clear distinction between courtesy and courtship. 
 From the want of a clear dividing line, men 
 often pass from one to the other before they are 
 173
 
 WOMEN: -COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 aware of it, and quite against their intentions. 
 »' We often proceed farther than we at first de- 
 signed," says Count Anthony Hamilton, "when 
 we indulge ourselves in trifling liberties, which 
 we think of no consequence ; for though the 
 heart perhaps takes no part at the beginning, it 
 seldom fails to be engaged in the end." A man 
 owes both to himself and the lady he deals with, 
 to be strictly on guard in conversation and man- 
 ner, where his intentions are not serious, never 
 to go beyond the boundary which separates the 
 polite from the particular, the gallant from the 
 lover. Women take advantage of every oppor- 
 tunity they can get to convert an acquaintance 
 into an ' admirer,' and they so often go beyond 
 what is fair and true that it is necessary for a 
 man who is not anxious to bear that title, some- 
 times to exercise a good deal of care. " All the 
 sex feel an unspeakable satisfaction," said a 
 courtier of the last century, " at having men in 
 their train, whom they care not for, and to use 
 174
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 them as their slaves of state, merely to swell 
 their equipage." * And when the season is over, 
 and it is time to be established, they expect to 
 select from the throng, whomsoever they think 
 most eligible. We should distinguish between 
 a position that is chosen by ourselves, and one 
 that is forced upon us ; and we should resist the 
 latter. There are few connexions, I believe, 
 which either in their inception or their consum- 
 mation, are wholly voluntary upon both sides; 
 and that is one reason that so few of them are 
 happy. It seems particularly necessary to regu- 
 late the attention and devotion that are paid to 
 ladies, in this country ; for, unlike the state of 
 
 * It is persons of grave character and understanding, who 
 are most often the subjects of this kind of slavery. They 
 have too much re!=pecl for the sex to see their actual princi- 
 ples or to deal with tliem in the proper way. " Men of sense, 
 my dear," says Lady Betty Modish, " make the best fools in 
 the world ; their sincerity and good-breeding throw them so 
 entirely into one's power, and give one so agreeable a thirst 
 of using them ill,— 'tis impossible not to quench it." 
 
 175
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 things in Europe, the subjects of flirtation here 
 are unmarried women. 
 
 A man may safely lay down to himself the 
 rule that it is not prudent to push forward, or 
 suffer to be drawn forward, to an actual engage- 
 ment, an intimacy with any woman who has not 
 appeared, in the cool and dispassionate moments 
 of previous reflection, to be a proper and de- 
 sirable connexion. Marriage, it should be remem- 
 bered, is a relation that is to last for life; and 
 that hallucination of the fancy, which is called 
 * Love,' is not very likely to last quite so long. 
 "Love gilds us over," says Etherege, "and 
 makes us show fine things to one another for a 
 time; but soon the gold wears off, and then the 
 native brass appears." We should take care, 
 therefore, that the substantial metal which will 
 be found beneath the glitter, shall prove some- 
 thing better than brass. To form a matrimonial 
 arrangement merely on the footing of conve- 
 nience, and to trust that familiarity and fre- 
 176
 
 WOxMExV : - COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 quency will develope an affection that will make 
 it tolerable, is certainly anything but wise. A 
 connexion that is not delightful at first, will soon 
 be disgusting. "Marrying to increase love," 
 says Wycherley, " is like gaming to become 
 rich : Alas ! you only lose what little stock you 
 had before." 
 
 Some men consult their ears on the subject of 
 marriage, and take a wife by hearsay. Others 
 consult their eyes, and marry beauty ; believing, 
 with Lord Foppington, "that a fine woman's an 
 excuse for anything." A third class consult their 
 fingers, and find the attraction of their mistress 
 in proportion to her thousands. While there is 
 another sect who think with Miss Hobart, that 
 " the pleasures of matrimony are so trifling, in 
 comparison with its inconveniences, that it is 
 impossible to imagine how any reasonable crea- 
 ture can resolve upon it at all." It is difficult to 
 tell which of these various parties is the farthest 
 from reason. To abstain wholly from marriage, 
 X 177
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 and live in solitude of heart, is to contradict the 
 plainest and most compulsory instincts of na- 
 ture. The " strong- necessity of loving" will 
 compel men to find some object for their passion ; 
 and if it flow not through this channel, it will 
 lead to guilt, and guilt will lead to wretched- 
 ness. To marry merely for fortune, is to take 
 an estate so heavily encumbered as to have its 
 clear value reduced almost to zero. On the other 
 hand, w^holly to neglect that consideration, is as 
 little consistent with right reason : " Love makes 
 but a slovenly figure in the house, when poverty 
 keeps the door." The only excuse that can be 
 given by him that weds for beauty, will be found 
 in the hope that the passion which comeliness 
 has excited may attach so permanently to the 
 object it belongs to, that the decline of the cause 
 may not sweep off the effect. But there is more 
 danger that when " the hey-day in the blood is 
 tame," the lover will become indignant at the 
 quackery by which he has been imposed upon. 
 178
 
 WOMEN: -COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 Intellect in a wife is a consideration which can- 
 not be wholly overlooked ; if she has it, the 
 husband may be compelled to respect her too 
 much ; if she has it not, to respect himself too 
 little. One of Wycherley's characters remarks, 
 *''Tis my maxim — He's a fool that m.arries; 
 but he's a greater that does not marry a fool." 
 
 If a man shall have settled all these difficulties 
 in his own mind, and have determined upon the 
 propriety of wooing- in some particular direction, 
 let him be persuaded that boldness and con- 
 fidence are the only requisites for success. Let 
 him assure himself that " Courage is the whole 
 mystery of making love, and of more use than 
 conduct is in war," and believe with Sir Harry 
 Wildair, that " women are only cold as some 
 men are brave, from the modesty or fear of those 
 that attack them." And this remark applies to 
 every class of women, to the gentle and the 
 delicate as truly as to the passionate and strong. 
 179
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 All of them, instinctively admire bravery before 
 every other quality in a man, and involuntarily 
 yield to it. 
 
 Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast, 
 Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs; 
 What careth she for hearts when once possessed? 
 Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; 
 But not too humbly, or she will despise 
 Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes; 
 Disguise e'en tenderness if thou art wise ; 
 Brisk confidence still best with woman copes. 
 Pique her and soothe in turn, soon passion crowns thy 
 hopes. 
 
 He who shows himself certain of victory, and 
 indifferent to the chances of defeat, rouses in 
 the breast of woman, with whom vanity is still 
 the imperial passion, a determination to make 
 him feel the influence of her charms ; and en- 
 gaged in that design, her own freedom is soon 
 lost. Women may admire and praise a sober 
 man of sense, a refined man of modesty, or a 
 grave man of dignity ; but it is to the forward, 
 the foppish, the self-assuming and the conceited, 
 that they yield their hearts and hands. When 
 180
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 Matta, the companion of the Chevalier de Gram- 
 nriont, courted the Marchioness de Senantes, at 
 Turin, she gave him some advice for prevailing 
 in that art, of which this is a portion : 
 
 Fopperv, grinning, and grimace, 
 And fertile store of common-place ; 
 And oaths as false as dicers swear, 
 And ivory teetlr, and scented hair; 
 And trinkets, and the pride of dress 
 Can only give your scheme success. 
 
 That passion which none but St. Paul has ever 
 named, — 'the lust of the eye,' — is particularly 
 strong in women, and through that they are often 
 captivated. A brilliant exterior and a dazzling 
 manner have an influence over them which men 
 can scarcely realize. Handsome presents are the 
 necessary price of the favour of many of them ; 
 as we must lose a gilded fly to gain a trout. 
 Many more are certain to yield to the attentions 
 of any one who is greatly talked of by others 
 and is often the subject of admiration in society : 
 like pigs — if so uncourtly an allusion may for an 
 181
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 instant be hazarded, — they are most safely caught 
 by the ears. In an ancient collection of proverbs, 
 attributed to Odin himself, a translation of which 
 is given in Mr. Taylor's Historic Survey, we 
 meet with this piece of counsel : 
 
 Let him who woos be full of chat, 
 And full of flattery, and all that,* 
 And carry presents in his hat : 
 Skill may supplant the worthier man. 
 
 There is one capital error into which persons 
 inexperienced in life are apt to fall, and which, 
 in many instances that I have witnessed, is pro- 
 ductive of painful and bitter disappointment. 
 Many who dread the tyranny of. a woman whose 
 rank has accustomed her to authority, and who 
 
 * The divine author leaves us in a delightful state of igno- 
 ranee as to the significance of this phrase, which I suppose 
 is intended to have all the comprehensiveness of a legal 
 *&c.' Pope's employment of the same words in the Rape 
 of the Lock would indicate something very mysterious. 
 
 • Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat, 
 With singing, laughing, ogling, and all thaV 
 
 182
 
 WOMEN: -COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 dislike in a wife that independence which the 
 possession of wealth generally produces, think 
 that by wedding a person who is poor, and be- 
 neath them in standing, they will secure quiet to 
 their lives, and that pleasing gratitude which the 
 elevation is calculated to produce. No expecta- 
 tion proves more generally fallacious. A woman, 
 when she is married, deems herself at once on 
 a level with her husband, and forgets that she 
 ever knew another sphere. If she has been poor, 
 she will be afraid that modesty and thrift will 
 betray her native meanness of spirit, and she 
 will drive into an excess of extravagance and 
 luxury to vindicate her fitness for the station she 
 illustrates. If humble in origin, and unfamiliar 
 through her youth with the scenes of fashion 
 and gaiety into which she is introduced, she will 
 quickly learn "to bear her part in all the follies 
 of the town with as good a grace as if she had 
 never been out of sight of Grosvenor Square." 
 Against expectations which are thus doomed lo 
 183
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 certain failure there is an admirable caution in 
 the autobiography of Sir Henry Fynes, son of the 
 Earl of Lincoln, in 1600; a passage so charged 
 with accurate sense and so whimsical in the 
 earnestness of its expression, that I cannot for- 
 bear transcribing it : 
 
 "It pleased God," says he, " for my sins and 
 offences, to put thoughts into my head of mar- 
 riage, which turned out my utter ruin and confu- 
 sion; for I fell into an opinion not to marry any 
 rich woman, nor any great woman, nor any 
 widow ; and flattered myself with such worldly 
 reasons as I thought were wisdom for choice of 
 a wife; which were these, namely, I imagined 
 that great women or rich women would look for 
 great jointures out of my estate, and so hurt my 
 children, and would a^k great charge to be main- 
 tained, and their great friends would cur me and 
 oversway me, and that they would brag of ther.'i 
 and their estates, and the value of their friends, 
 and so contemn me and not respect me. And A 
 184
 
 WOMEN: -COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 thought a meaner woman would be the contrary, 
 and be beholden to me for raising her, and so 1 
 would live more contentedly in my cottarage. 
 But I find the wisdom of man is folly with God. 
 Therefore, I do advise my son to be wise in his 
 marriage, as concerning worldly matters and his 
 liking, &c. but for contentment and the disposi- 
 tion of humours, leave those and all things else 
 that may happen, to God who knows and guides 
 all ; only pray for those happinesses, and avoid 
 sins ; and pray also that God may hear and give 
 the blessing, and marry as richly as he can. For 
 a rich woman and .a great woman, I find by sure 
 experience, will ask as little to be maintained 
 and give as much contentment, if she be reli- 
 gious and good, as the poorest and meanest; for 
 the old proverb is true, ' Set a beggar on horse- 
 back, and he will ride.' " 
 
 Sir Henry seems to have held the theory that 
 those pleasures which arose from feeling de- 
 pended so much on humour for their appreciation, 
 y 185
 
 WOMEN: -COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 that he who possessed them might often be in 
 such a mood that he could say " I would have 
 been as happy without them :" but that the com- 
 forts of wealth were so numberable and men- 
 surable that every one could at all times feel the 
 precise value of what he gained. In support of 
 that view, it is to be considered that the delights 
 which spring from sentiment dull and diminish 
 in proportion to their use, but that those which 
 are oifered by wealth increase in their attraction 
 and necessity, as they are more often tasted. 
 Against this decline of interest in all matters of 
 the heart, civilized life has provided no remedy ; 
 but a remote and very peculiar people in the East 
 have contrived a method of escaping the evil. 
 In Circassia, the next morning after a marriage, 
 the husband leaves his wife at the break of day, 
 and she goes into a new house which he has 
 Duilt for her, where he only sees her again at 
 night, or with the greatest mystery, — it being 
 considered a species of dishonour to appear in 
 i86
 
 WOMEN: -COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 public with one's wife. "This custom of not 
 seeing their wives," says the intelligent and 
 well-informed Chevalier Taitbout de Marigny, 
 " does not arise from any contempt of t^e Cir- 
 cassians for the fair sex. I think, on the con- 
 trary, that it was originally established with the 
 view of prolonging the empire of love between 
 the husband and wife, by the same difficulties 
 that are experienced by lovers in obtaining pos- 
 session of each other, and to which the duration 
 of its illusion may frequently be ascribed. A 
 similar law was given by Lycurgus, to the La- 
 cedemonians, a fact which might serve to prove 
 the origin of the Abases, or rather the establish- 
 ment of some colonies of the Peloponnesus upon 
 their shores, were it not certain that many na- 
 tions seem to have had similar customs from 
 their infancy. And the Spartans themselves only 
 differed from other Greeks in so far as they main- 
 tained themselves by means of institutions from 
 which others have departed in proportion as they 
 187
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 have become more civilized." Strange ! that a 
 national usage among these remote savages 
 should so long have anticipated a course which 
 Mr. Bulwer recently hinted at as the last sug- 
 gestion of the most fastidious refinement. 
 
 Confidence and determination, as we have 
 already remarked, are the most essential qualities 
 for the success of a lover. By that charm, the 
 most variant caprice is fixed, and the most 
 haughty coldness is subdued. He who can com- 
 mand that display in manner, may smile at the 
 disdain behind which the most 'frigid beauty may 
 entrench herself. " A woman's pride," says 
 Lady Easy, — and perhaps the observation is 
 applicable to all pride, — "a woman's pride at 
 best may be suspected to be more a distrust than 
 a real contempt of mankind." By throwing an 
 air of deep sincerity into the earnestness of your 
 address to such a person, the reserve which has 
 thus been assumed will soon be melted down. 
 It is necessary to study the peculiarities of dis- 
 188
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 position by which each woman's natural temper 
 has been modified, in the course of past expe- 
 riences, and to accommodate your style to suit 
 that condition. I imagine the strictest moralist 
 .would not object to that ethical conclusion of 
 which the' Chevalier de Grammont was so well 
 convinced, " that, in love, whatever is gained by 
 address is fairly gained." 
 
 When you find that one of your friends ap- 
 pears to be attracted by a young lady, and to be 
 attentive to her, you should be extremely careful 
 how you express to him any unfavourable opinion 
 about her, or indulge in any derogatory remarks. 
 If he should make her his wife, the remembrance 
 of your observations will make a constant awk- 
 wardness between you. It is still a more deli- 
 cate case when a man comes to ask your advice 
 about marrying a woman. " Men are seldom in 
 the right when they guess at a woman's mind," 
 says Etherege; and a man's mind about a wo- 
 man it is often equally difficult to discover. But 
 189
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 when advice of that kind is asked, you may be 
 perfectly certain that the enquirer has determined 
 to marry, even if the matter has not gone still 
 farther. 
 
 An anecdote in the life of the third Earl of. 
 Shaftesbury, illustrates this truth, and proves the 
 quick sagacity of that accomplished nobleman. 
 Sir Richard Onslow, and the Earl, then Sir An- 
 thony Ashley Cooper, were one day invited by 
 Sir John Danvers to dine with him at Chelsea, 
 and desired to come early, as he had an affair of 
 moment to communicate to them. They went 
 accordingly; and being seated. Sir John told 
 them, that he had made choice of them both, for 
 their known abilities and their particular friend- 
 ship to him, in order to advise with them in a 
 matter of great consequence. He had, he said, 
 been a widower many years, and began to want 
 somebody that might ease him of the trouble of 
 housekeeping, and take some care of him in his 
 old age, and for that purpose had thought of a 
 190
 
 WOMEN: — COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 woman whom he had known some years. " In 
 short," said he, " it is my housekeeper." Sir 
 Richard Onslow, who was well acquainted with 
 the family, and had a great regard for Sir John's 
 children, was extremely mortified at this declara- 
 tion, and began to speak, of the impropriety of 
 marrying at his years, particularly such a woman. 
 He was proceeding to give a description of her, 
 when Sir Anthony interrupting him, turned to- 
 wards the knight, " Before we go farther. Sir 
 John," said he, " open the door, and let in my 
 lady!"... After a pause, Sir John answered, 
 that it was true, he had been married the day 
 before. 
 
 When Onslow afterwards asked Sir Anthony, 
 what had given him that suggestion, " Why," 
 said he, " the man and the manner gave me a 
 suspicion that, having done a foolish thing, he 
 wanted to cover himself with the authority of 
 our advice." 
 
 191
 
 TITLE VII. 
 OF MORNING CALLS. 
 
 'Tis the best pait of dialogue 
 To humour always what the rest assert 
 And listen to the topics most in vogue; 
 Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN must pay his visits regularly, 
 even if he does not pay his debts. 
 
 In the beginning of the season, after persons 
 have returned from the country, and at the close 
 of it when you are about to leave town, you 
 should call upon all your acquaintance. It is 
 polite and pleasant to do the same thing on New 
 Year's day, to wish your friends the compliments 
 of that season. 
 
 It is becoming more usual for visits of cere« 
 z 193
 
 MORNING CALLS. 
 
 mony to be performed by cards ; it will be a 
 happy day when that is universal. 
 
 The habit of calling upon a number of per- 
 sons, and addressing a variety of characters rea- 
 dily and briefly, gives great ease and accomplish- 
 ment to manner. We may converse intimately 
 with one or two persons of distinguished breed- 
 ing, and reap less profit than from exchanging a 
 bow and three words with a dozen strangers in 
 a morning. This intermixture with the general 
 world, and this rapid observation of the de- 
 meanour and style of a variety of people, is a 
 necessary exercise to one who would become 
 " an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent 
 differences, of very soft society and great show- 
 ing."* 
 
 If a stranger belonging to your own class of 
 society comes to town, you should call upon him. 
 That civility should be paid even if there be no 
 
 * Shakspeare. 
 194
 
 MORNING CALLS. 
 
 previous acquaintance; and it does not require 
 the ceremony of an introduction. In going to 
 another city, you should in general wait to be 
 visited ; but the etiquelte is different in many 
 European cities, and in some of those m our 
 country. 
 
 When you call to see a person, and are in- 
 formed at the door, that the party whom you ask 
 for, is engaged, you should never persist in your 
 attempt to be admitted, but should acquiesce at 
 once in that arrangement which the other has 
 made for his convenience, to protect himself 
 from interruption. However intimate you may 
 be in any house, you have no right nor reason, 
 when an order has been given to exclude general 
 visiters, and no exception has been made of you, 
 to violate that exclusion and declare that the 
 party shall be at home to you. I have known 
 several persons who have had the habit of forcing 
 an entrance into a house, after having been thus 
 forbidden ; but whatever has been the degree 
 195
 
 MORNING CALLS. 
 
 of intimacy, I never knew it done without gi'ving 
 an offence bordering on disgust. There are many 
 times and seasons at which a person chooses to 
 be entirely alone, and when there is no friend- 
 ship for which he would give up his occupation 
 or his solitude. 
 
 It is now usual for those who do not wish to 
 see company, to send word that " they are en- 
 gaged ;" formerly, that message would have 
 given offence, but it is now so customary that 
 every one understands it. A traditionary bon mot 
 of Scipio Nascica, seems to bring the saying 
 of "not at home," to a 7io7i plus. He one day 
 called on Ennius the poet, who, though at home, 
 was denied by his servant. Soon after, Ennius 
 returned the visit, and Scipio himself coming to 
 the door, told him that he was not at home. 
 "Nay!" said Ennius, gravely, "I know that 
 you are ; I hear your voice." " You are a fine 
 fellow, indeed," replied Scipio ; " when I called 
 196
 
 MORNING CALLS. 
 
 on you the other day, I believed the maid who 
 told me you were not at home, and now you will 
 not believe me although you hear my own voice 
 affirming it." 
 
 197
 
 TITLE VIII. 
 OF EVENING VISITS. 
 
 In various talk the instructive hours are past, 
 Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 Evening visits are paid only to those w^ith 
 whom we are well acquainted. They should not 
 be very frequent even where one is intimate, 
 nor should they be much protracted. Frequent 
 visits will gain for a man, in any house, the 
 reputation of tiresome, and long visits will inva- 
 riably bring down the appellation of hore. Morn- 
 ing visits are always extremely brief, being mat- 
 ters of mere ceremony ; but the inordinate length 
 which evening visits often endure, is worthy to 
 be ' reformed altogether.' There are many per- 
 Eons who never think of paying an evening visit 
 198
 
 EVE^^ING VISITS. 
 
 of less than two hours ; and yet there are not ten 
 people in all the world who are capable of giving 
 continued pleasure by their conversation for that 
 length of time, — still fewer who can do it fre- 
 quently. I will venture to say that there is no 
 parlour, through which more pleasure would not 
 be diffused by the visiter's rising at the end of 
 the first half-hour than by his remaining through 
 the fourth, even if he were delighting every ear 
 by the brilliance of his speeches. The restraint 
 imposed upon the listeners is irksome to the last 
 degree ; for both body and mind are worn out by 
 such ceaseless sessions. 
 
 In a curious volume of ' Observations and Dis- 
 cours.es' by Grey Brydges, Lord Chandos, in 
 1620, there are some shrewd, though rather 
 splenetic, remarks upon what the writer terms 
 ' visitations.' The condemnation which he gives 
 to the habit of very frequent visits, is judicious 
 and true. " It is the index," says he, " of an 
 idle and unprofitable disposition ; a taker up of 
 199
 
 EVEWINCf VISITS. 
 
 time that may be better disposed ; and such r 
 spender of time that in few actions it can be 
 worse employed. This vain custom, once begun, 
 mduceth a habit not easily lost, therefore not 
 good to begin ; and once practised, it is not so 
 safely left ; for begun, and not continued, makes 
 the leaving it oif esteemed a neglect, which 
 otherwise would be never claimed as a due. 
 And these kind of ceremonies be equally tedious 
 to the complimenter and complimentee, if they 
 reciprocally respect not this fond and dissimulate 
 kind of conversation. And though it often hap- 
 pen that, in some places where they visit, their 
 tedious society be well accepted, which then 
 must only be allowed to such as are of the same 
 occupation, and are even with them in the same 
 kind ; yet sometimes it falls out, that thus run- 
 ning over all kind of company, they be to many 
 so unwelcome and troublesome in distracting or 
 diverting their better employments, that often 
 those they come to, conceal themselves upon 
 200
 
 EVENING VISITS. 
 
 purpose, or suppose some necessary business 
 which calls thenm away, with intention only to 
 get rid of them, [or perhaps jump out of the 
 window, as Lord Byron used to do, in order to 
 escape from disagreeable visiters]. From which 
 tediousness, if no better employment of their 
 own can divert them, yet the consideration of the 
 unseasonable shifts they put those to whom they 
 visit, should even shame them from frequenting 
 so bad a custom. Yet custom hath so far pre- 
 vailed, that I dare not prescribe a total neglect; 
 but I counsel to avoid frequent and assidual prac- 
 tice of so superfluous, though received a fashion. 
 Those that duty, love, respect, business or fami- 
 liarity, bind us to, we must observe and visit ; 
 lest they interpret our absence to be either in 
 contempt of their persons, or a carelessness and 
 disesteem of their favour and friendship." 
 
 Men sometimes presume, for the acceptab(e- 
 ness of their presence, upon the personal affec- 
 tion with which they are regarded ; but among 
 2a 201
 
 EVENING VISITS. 
 
 people of the world that will go for very little. 
 In the breasts of those who use life extensively, 
 the generous feelings have but small develop- 
 ment ; the habit of hearing every one coldly and 
 severely discussed, does away with all that 
 reverence which must be the foundation of the 
 highest affections. We must bear in mind that 
 those we frequent will seize the first opportunity 
 of pronouncing us tiresome and of laughing at 
 the commonness of our presence. 'To ensure 
 the preservation of friendship,' says Chevreau, 
 •it is prudent to place our visits at distant inter- 
 vals.' ' Continual rain,' says a Jewish axiom, illus- 
 trating this position, 'is unpleasant; it is most 
 agreeable when it comes after being wished for. 
 Familiarity is the bane of friendship.' 
 
 There is an epigram of Martial on the subject 
 of intimate friendships, which is infinitely just 
 and true : 
 
 Si vitare velis acerta quwdam 
 Et tristes animi cavere morsus: 
 
 308
 
 EVENING VISITS. 
 
 Nulli te facias niiiiis sodalem ; 
 GuEBdebis minus, et minus dolebis. 
 
 There is a certain ossifying- tendency in the 
 atmosphere of the great world which renders the 
 heart of its denizens callous to those emotions 
 in practical affairs, to which in fancy they may 
 still be susceptible. After we have classified 
 " those whose hearts are a mere muscle, and 
 serve only for the purpose of an even circula- 
 tion,"* we should leave but a small portion of 
 the fashionable world uncatalogued. Napoleon 
 was expressing the conclusions of observation, 
 at least as much as those of consciousness, when 
 he exclaimed, "The heart! the heart! Prrrrr! 
 What is the heart but a bit of the body through 
 w^hich passes a great vein, wherein the blood 
 flows faster when you run'*"f You will be liked 
 as long as you afford pleasure by your visits, but 
 the moment that their length or frequency obliges 
 you to tax good-nature or sympathy for the tole- 
 
 *Cowper. t^Iemoires de D'Abrante§. 
 
 203
 
 EVENING VISITS. 
 
 ranee of that which is no longer gratifying, you 
 will quickly find that you have over-drawn your 
 account. There is a melancholy picture in Mr. 
 Southey's Life of White, of the distress to which 
 that amiable and deserving person was reduced. 
 His society had been greatly courted when he 
 was in health ; but the moment his spirits for- 
 sook him, and he was compelled to " implore 
 company even as a famishing beggar implores 
 food," every door was closed upon him. And 
 if that selfishness prevailed among the young 
 and unworldly, infinitely less charitable will be 
 the tempers of those whose sympathies have 
 been dulled by age, and whose hearts have been 
 made hard by experience. 
 
 204
 
 TITLE IX. 
 OF RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 With breeding finished, and with temper sweet. 
 When serious, easy, and when gay, discreet. 
 
 Young. 
 
 To entertain company without any embarrass 
 ment or excitement, without attracting attention 
 or protruding yourself upon the notice of your 
 guests, is an art only to be acquired by long 
 usage and practised with great tact. Behaviour 
 at home is one of the best touchstones of breed- 
 ing ; many behave well abroad who cannot ex- 
 hibit ease under their own roof. We find a num- 
 ber of persons who seem to be in a perpetual 
 fever while there is company in their house, — 
 who are running about under a nervous deter- 
 mination that people shall be entertained and 
 205
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 entertaining, — who are begging people to feel 
 themselves at home, hoping that they enjoy 
 themselves, &c. This denotes an utter want of 
 ton ; it is done by men who have spent the best 
 days of their manhood behind a desk, and have 
 come at length to the exercise of wealth, without 
 any of the habits or manners that should adorn 
 its illustration. A gentleman, on such occasions, 
 is quiet and calm; he seems to do nothing, 
 though in fact he does a great deal. He goes 
 About Vv^th composure and self-possession ; and 
 no one could tell by his behaviour that he was 
 not one of the guests. 
 
 Ladies make a point of not being much dressed 
 in their own houses ; the reason assigned being 
 that some of the company may happen not to be 
 highly dressed. This, I confess, seems to be but 
 an indifferent compliment to her guests; but 
 usage has settled its necessity. 
 
 When Scott dined with Sir Robert Peel, he 
 observed that the baronet took the lead in con- 
 206
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 versation in his own house, which he would not 
 do elsewhere. I have generally found the prac- 
 tice of the best-bred men to be the reverse ; and 
 I think that course is better, for the reason that 
 most persons find it more agreeable to talk than 
 to listen. The host should open the conversation 
 at dinner, if no one else will do it, — set it fairly 
 a-going, — and then hand it over to others. After 
 that, his part is to supply all the gaps and vacan- 
 cies that occur; to stimulate it when it flags, and 
 to give it a new direction, if it gets on an objec- 
 tionable bias; to give effect to the unfinished 
 remarks of others ; to see that every good shaft 
 hits ; and to control, steer, and moderate the talk, 
 but not monopolize it. To take up a topic, say 
 the best thing upon it, and then turn it over to 
 the rest, is not very courtly. It was in this way 
 that Scott told Mr. Adolphus that the Duke of 
 Wellington debated ; " he slices the argument," 
 said he, " into two or three parts, and helps him- 
 self to the best." 
 
 207
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 However numerous may be the company which 
 you are entertaining-, you should make a point of 
 paying some attention peculiarly to each of your 
 guests, and exchanging some conversation with 
 all. This should not be done in that formal and 
 perfunctory manner which we sometimes see, 
 when the host goes round his room, saying a few 
 frigid words to every one, or taking a glass of 
 wine with half a dozen at a time, with a stiff ex- 
 actness that conveys no compliment because it 
 denotes no feeling. You should throw something 
 of warmth and particularity into your address to 
 each, causing, by the interest you indicate, every 
 one to imagine that he is the object of your chief 
 regard. Let each be made to think that it is he 
 especially whom you delight to honour. 
 
 More care should be taken in assorting those 
 whom you bring together, than generally prevails 
 in American society. Most persons when they 
 have decided on giving a dinner, send out invita- 
 tions to the right and left, either without any se- 
 208
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 lection at all, or with such a choice as depends 
 not on the mutual harmony of the tastes, tempers 
 and pursuits of the invited, but on each one's own 
 individual distinction or his intimacy with 4he 
 entertainer. Accordingly when one enters a 
 drawing-room on such an occasion, one cannot 
 help exclaiming, 
 
 Lud ! \*hat a motley group the scene discloses ! — 
 for it is often apparent at a glance that not a sin- 
 gle interesting topic can possibly be introduced 
 and discussed which will not give offence or un- 
 easiness to some one, and no style of manner can 
 prevail which will not thwart some one's taste or 
 inclination. A refined and sensitive man of let- 
 ters is seated between an Arab whose thoughts 
 never wander beyond the precincts of the Stock- 
 alley, and a politician whose turbulent spirit is 
 occupied with nothing but the returns from this 
 State or that county ; and one party will taste the 
 delicacy of Walpole and the sentiment of Gray 
 as much as the other will relish the jargon of the 
 2 b 209
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 money-market or the filth of the polls. A hiorh 
 born man, whose hourly thoughts are bristling 
 with contempt for business, and horror at the 
 lei^lling doctrines of democracy, is supported on 
 the one hand by a coarse and vulgar cit, and on 
 the other by some upstart radical with whom Ja- 
 cobinism is a religion, and enmity to rank is a 
 matter of conscience. It is fortunate, too, if in 
 this ill-combined assemblage, there is not also a 
 plentiful sprinkling of personal hostilities. How 
 can conversation flourish or pleasure be diffused, 
 when the minds of the party are thus mutually 
 abhorrent, when the chaste wit of a portion is in- 
 terrupted by some low topic from the hustings, or 
 the ease and equanimity of the company is broken 
 up by some sharp-shooting between violent foes 1 
 We are told that the custom of challenging a man 
 to drink wine arose from a habit that prevailed at 
 the feast-board in the days of Saxon savageness, 
 when a guest found it necessary to call upon a 
 friend to protect him while he drank, lest sorae- 
 210
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 body should stab him while the glass was at his 
 lips. When one casts an eye about a table encir- 
 cled by such as we have described, among whom 
 there prevails, in mind or heart, not only no sym- 
 pgjhy, but a strong antipathy, one can hardly help 
 thinking it might be useful if this primitive usage 
 were revived. If there be no danger of the sword 
 being put in requisition, there is more than dan- 
 ger that the guests will " shoot out their arrows 
 — even bitter words." 
 
 " If thou be made the master of a feast," says 
 the author of Ecclesiasticus, " lift not thyself up, 
 but be among them as one of the rest; take dili- 
 gent care for them, and so sit down. And when 
 thou hast done all thy office, take thy place, that 
 thou mayest be merry with them, and receive a 
 crown for thy well ordering of the feast." He 
 who calls people together in his own house 
 should consider himself bound to the same duties 
 of ministration as anciently rested upon the 
 archon of the feast. He should consider himself, 
 211
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT IIOME- 
 
 for the nonce, the servant of his friends, and his 
 acts should aid their comfort rather than his own 
 illustration. He should play a second part, and 
 neither in manner nor remark " over-crow" any 
 one. Every kind of ostentation which can mor- 
 tify the humblest of his guests, should be 
 avoided. His object should be to make his com- 
 pany enjoy themselves, rather than to afford them 
 enjoyment. To enlarge upon the subject of his 
 furniture or pictures, — to throw others into the 
 shade by the emphasis of his manner or the dis- 
 play of his conversation, — to impair any one's 
 comfort so much as must be done by wounding 
 his self-love — is to be guilty of a very uncour- 
 teous breach of the obligations wliich good-breed- 
 ing has attached to the office he has assumed. 
 
 It is taking a great and very indelicate liberty 
 with a person to invite him as an equal and on 
 terms of friendship, to your house, only for the 
 purpose of displaying him for your own amuse- 
 ment or that of other guests. The civility that 
 212
 
 KECEFV^ING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 is inspired by vanity of this kind, wlien a man is 
 " sent for not to be treated as a friend, but to 
 satisfy curiosity ; not to be entertained so much 
 as wondered at ; when the same earnestness 
 which excites them to see their guest, would 
 have made them equally proud of a visit from a 
 rhinoceros," is not merely worthless but it is per- 
 fidious. You not only pay the person no real 
 compliment at all, when you invite him to contri- 
 bute to nothing but the gratification of your own 
 vanity, but you betray him into circumstances 
 which may be very annoying and humiliating to 
 him. You have no right to monster a man uo 
 without regard to his wishes or feelings, merely 
 to gain a passing eclat for your drawing-room. 
 There are, to be sure, distinguished persons who 
 are proud to be considered as show-beasts, and 
 who are more delighted the more eyes are upon 
 them : such you may safely assemble a company 
 to look at, nor care how much they are picked to 
 pieces by the spectators. But there are many 
 213
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 Other persons of eminence belonginj^ to the first 
 class of society, who are invariably disgusted by 
 that kind of exhibition, and there are many more, 
 whose station is less unequivocal, who are deeply 
 indignant at that sort- of invitation, and if they 
 find that they are invited not as ordinary guests, 
 but as fiddlers for the rest of the company, which 
 distinction they are very jealous in suspecting-, 
 they never fail to resent it as a deep insult. If 
 you find in your own house that any of your 
 company are inclined to treat in this wise any 
 one whom you have invited from no such selfish 
 vanity, you should avoid everything that looks 
 like such an intention, in your own manner, and 
 should endeavour to check the freedom of others, 
 as much as you can. You are to consider your 
 guests as b^ing under your protection, and having, 
 by inviting them as equals and on terms of ordi- 
 nary courtesy, given an implied assurance that 
 nothing should occur under your roof to disturb 
 that relation, you are in honour bound to prevent 
 214
 
 EECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 those encroachments upon this equal condition, 
 which any of your company may be inclined tc 
 make. Dr. Johnson, who had an intolerant dis- 
 gust at " being made a zany of," as he expressed 
 it, made it a rule, whenever he discovered that 
 he was invited to talk only to gratify the curiosity 
 of the company, to maintain a profound silence 
 during the whole of the entertainment. 
 
 Private concerts, or parties invited for the sole 
 purpose of playing and singing, are apt to be, 
 like Milton's nightingale, 
 
 •' Most musical, most melancholy ;" 
 
 but the introduction of music at an ordinary 
 party, when it is unexpected, has generally a 
 very agreeable effect. When people assemble in 
 a small company at nine o'clock, there is some- 
 thing rather appalling in the necessity which lies 
 before them of entertaining and being entertained 
 for the space of two hours, and this prospect is 
 apt to lie somewhat heavily upon the spirits, 
 S15
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOMO. 
 
 giving dullness to conversation nnd uneasiness 
 to the temper. It is therefore a great relief to 
 find the piano opened, and to know that the ne- 
 cessity of talking is at an end, and that you are 
 at liberty either to converse or listen, as you 
 choose. 
 
 If you cannot introduce music when you are 
 entertaining evening company, you may advan- 
 tageously assist the colloquial fluency of your 
 guests, by laying before them matters which will 
 furnish ready topics of conversation, or break up 
 the formality of the circle by calling the com- 
 pany to direct their curiosity to a single point. 
 Pictures or drawings of persons, buildings, 
 scenes or sites that happen to be interesting and 
 fresh in the fashionable world, — specimens of a 
 new style of work or of curious antiques lately 
 discovered, — something of this kind should be 
 brought forward to assist remark and relieve 
 attention. Care should be taken, however, that 
 the consideration of the company is not forced to 
 216
 
 RECEIVING COMPANY AT HOME. 
 
 any of these things, beyond what is perfectly 
 voluntary and agreeable, — else the thing will 
 become a bore. It is very stupid for an enter- 
 tainer to compel his guests to follow him while 
 he turns over a book of engravings and calls 
 upon them to express a vapid admiration which 
 it is both annoying and difficult to do in proper 
 terms. 
 
 2 c 217
 
 TITLE X. 
 OF THE AMUSEMENTS OF A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 His aficrnoong he passed in visits, luncheons. 
 
 Lounging, and boxing. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 In the employment of those who are the most 
 devoted to business, and in the occupation of 
 those the most engaged in society, there occui 
 many hours which are naturally and necessarily 
 assigned to amusement. To all men, those are 
 hours of danger, and every judicious man will 
 take care to provide, for such seasons, some 
 ready and inviting undertaking to which he can 
 turn, the moment he is idle. 
 
 It should be the first care of every man who 
 
 values the refinement of his mind and manners, 
 
 of his thoughts and conversation, as well as of 
 
 every man of virtue, to avoid those amusements 
 
 218
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 which partake of a voluptuous and indelicate 
 nature. Licentiousness is sure to degrade and 
 brutity. No man can use it habitually without 
 its effects appearing in all his character. It will 
 coarsen his taste, so that he can no longer relish 
 or endure the refined society which it was once 
 his pride to cultivate : it will coarsen his con- 
 versation so that he can no longer succeed in it. 
 It was rightly feigned that the gods made them- 
 selves beasts, when they descended to unlawful 
 amours. 
 
 Dancing is cultivated in youth as an essential 
 part of education : a gentleman, who from fre- 
 quent usage has acquired a taste for it, and in 
 whose mind it is connected with the recollection 
 of very agreeable scenes, will generally find it a 
 pleasant recreation for his unoccupied time. Ma- 
 turin, the poet and preacher, and one of the 
 greatest novelists of modern times, was so fas- 
 cinated with its delights, that in his late years, 
 he did little else than dance, alone or in com- 
 319
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF A GENTLEMAV. 
 
 pany, from morninjr till night. It is a healthful 
 exercise; and its influence upon the ease and 
 gracefulness of the form and carriage is highly 
 important. \o man ^l\\ go into company unless 
 he finds himself at fese when lie is there: and 
 certainly no man can shine in it, unless his mo- 
 tion and manners are marked hy elegance and 
 finish. These exercises should, as often as po9- 
 sihle, he performed under the eye of a master; 
 that superintendence heing, in almost every art, 
 quite as necessary during the hours of practice, 
 as for the business of instruction. 
 
 Fencing is a thing very proper to be exercised 
 by a gentleman ; and it is so agreeable that in 
 the inclination of any one who is familiar with 
 It, it will yield in attraction to few sorts of 
 amusement. It developes the frame admirably; 
 and gives freedom and self-possession to the car- 
 riage. It is a manlier discipline than dancing; 
 and for the street, the effects of the one are as 
 much better as those of the other are more pro* 
 220
 
 AMUSEMENTS OP A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 fitable for the drawing-room. Boxinor is a noblt. 
 exercise, and ought not to be neglected. Its 
 vigour and stoutness form an excellent corrective 
 of that etfeminacy which the atmosphere of the 
 salon is apt to inspire ; ani the courage which 
 it imparts, gives substance and solidity to the 
 graces of good-breeding. 
 
 There is, however, reason to apprehend that, 
 to one familiar with the excitement of society, 
 the plain diversions which all will pronounce 
 harmless, will carry with them too little stimalus 
 to render themselves acceptable. There is one 
 amusement against which the warning of mo- 
 ralists has sometimes been raised, and yet which 
 in this connection and under the circumstances 
 and limitations that grow out of it, seems free 
 from objection; I allude to novel-reading. The 
 perusal of good romances is as harmless and as 
 useful, when they are taken up by way of enter- 
 tainment and for the filling up of a vacant half- 
 hour, as their best use is baneful, when they are 
 2di
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 made the business of life. To the very young, 
 and those who are untried in the world, they are 
 probably prejudicial ; but a man, matured in 
 years and principles, who has navigated all the 
 streams and canals of society, may indulge in 
 their perusal as far as his taste may suggest, not 
 only without injury but probably with great ad- 
 vantage. There are many practices of moderate 
 excitement which may be condemned, on the one 
 hand, as leading to greater excitements, and, on 
 the other, approved, as detaining from them. To 
 determine their moral influence, we mnst cast a 
 balance between these tendencies. A boy, who 
 is ignorant of life, is led by novels nearer to that 
 scene which in his unripe condition may en- 
 danger his integrity ; but it is plain that when a 
 man of society, — a man who has tried and been 
 tried by the world in all its most alluring shapes, 
 — takes up a novel, he passes from the greater to 
 the less, and lays down the reality to be amused 
 with its shadow. He can find, in his duode- 
 223
 
 AMUSEMENTS OP A GEXTLEMAX. 
 
 cimos, nothing more dangerous than what he has 
 already felt at large'; and he may find much that 
 will raise him far above his common level. 
 
 The objection that is sometimes raised, in 
 theory, to familiarity with works of fiction, that 
 they habituate the imagination to the airy scenes 
 of the false and the impossible, too much to ren- 
 der it fit for the actual business of life, would 
 seem to be confuted, with the most practical 
 completeness, in the career of Sir Walter Scott ; 
 a man who living habitually in a visionary world, 
 yet retained in action all the vigour of his tem- 
 per and all the clearness of his mind. It is pos- 
 sible that the old romances which were crowded 
 with the terrors of a supern^itural world, might 
 disturb the fancy more than would be consistent 
 with the strength and composure of all the facul- 
 ties. But the fictions now in vogue draw their 
 scenes and incidents from the real world : if the 
 reader is unversed in actual life, his habitual 
 dreams and imaginings will be still more untrue 
 223
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 and hurtful than the falsest pictures thus pre- 
 sented to him ; and if he is experienced in the 
 world, those pictures can do him no harm. 
 
 Accordingly some of the greatest men have 
 resorted usually to this method of diverting their 
 unoccupied time. Lard Camden relieved the ju- 
 dicial tedium of the wool-sack by a regular 
 perusal of all the novels that appeared. St. 
 Evremond was constantly reading Don Quixote, 
 and began it anew when he had finished it once. 
 Longuerue relates that La Rochefoucault, the 
 author of the Maxims, was greatly given to the 
 reading of romances all his life: yet that, in no 
 wise, embarrassed or obscured his perceptions 
 of the actual around him. The mind of Mackin- 
 tosh was never impaired by those habits of 
 reverie in which he tells us he was wont to 
 indulge, fancying himself the Sultan dwelling 
 at Constantinople and distributing favours to his 
 friends. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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