where racing, cock-fighting, hunting, and other rural sports, with smoaking, drinking, and party become their pursuit, and form the whole business and amusement of their future lives. The other part escape to town in the diversions, fashion, follies and vices of which they are immediately initiated. In this 5 academy some finish their studies, while others by their wiser parents are sent abroad, to add the knowledge of the diversions, fashions, follies, and vices of all Europe, to that of those of their own country.

Hence then we are to derive two great general characters 10 of humour, which are the clown and the coxcomb, and both of these will be almost infinitely diversified according to the different passions and natural dispositions of each individual; and according to their different walks in life. Great will be the difference, for instance, whether the country gentleman 15 be a whig or a tory; whether he prefers women, drink, or dogs; so will it be whether the town spark be allotted to serve his country as a politician, a courtier, a soldier, a sailor, or possibly a churchman (for by draughts from this academy, all these offices are supplied); or lastly, whether his ambition 20 shall be contented with no other appellation than merely that of a beau.

Some of our lads however, are destined to a further progress in learning; these are not only confined longer to the labours of a school, but are sent thence to the university. Here, if 25 they please, they may read on; and if they please, they may (as most of them do) let it alone, and betake themselves as their fancy leads, to the imitation of their elder brothers either in town or country.

This is a matter which I shall handle very tenderly, as I am 30 clearly of an opinion that an university education is much the best we have; for here at least there is some restraint laid on the inclinations of our youth. The sportsman, the gamester,

and the sot, cannot give such a loose to their extravagance, as if they were at home and under no manner of government; nor can our spark, who is disposed to the town pleasures, find either gaming-houses or play-houses, nor half the taverns or 5 bawdy-houses which are ready to receive him in CoventGarden.

So far however, I hope, I may say without offence, that, among all the schools at the universities, there is none where the science of good-breeding is taught; no lectures like the 10 excellent lessons on the ridiculous, which I have quoted above, and which I do most earnestly recommend to all my young readers. Hence the learned professions produce such excellent characters of humour; and the rudeness of physicians, lawyers, and parsons, however dignified or distinguished, affords 15 such pleasant stories to divert private companies, and sometimes the public.

I come now to the beautiful part of the creation, who, in the sense I here use the word, I am assured can hardly (for the most part) be said to have any education.

20 As to the counterpart of my country squire, the country gentlewoman, I apprehend, that, except in the article of the dancing-master, and perhaps in that of being barely able to read and write, there is very little difference between the education of many a squire's daughter, and that of his dairymaid, 25 who is most likely her principal companion, nay, the little difference which there is, I am afraid, not in the favour of the former; who, by being constantly flattered with her beauty and her wealth, is made the vainest and most selfconceited thing alive, at the same time, that such care is taken to instil 30 into her the principles of bashfulness and timidity, that she becomes ashamed and afraid of she knows not what.

If by any chance this poor creature drops afterwards, as it were, into the world, how absurd must be her behaviour! If

a man looks at her, she is confounded; and if he speaks to her, she is frightened out of her wits. She acts, in short, as if she thought the whole sex was engaged in a conspiracy to possess themselves of her person and fortune.

This poor girl, it is true, however she may appear to her 5 own sex, especially if she is handsome, is rather an object of compassion, than of just ridicule; but what shall we say when time or marriage have carried off all this bashfulness and fear, and when ignorance, aukwardness, and rusticity, are embellished with the same degree, though perhaps not the same kind of 10 affectation, which are to be found in a court. Here sure is a plentiful source of all that various humour which we find in the character of a country gentlewoman.

All this, I apprehend, will be readily allowed; but to deny good-breeding to the town lady, may be the more dangerous 15 attempt. Here, besides the professors of reading, writing, and dancing, the French and Italian masters, the music master, and of modern times, the whist master, all concur in forming this character. The manners master alone, I am afraid is omitted. And what is the consequence? not only 20 bashfulness and fear are entirely subdued, but modesty and discretion are taken off at the same time. So far from running away from, she runs after, the men; and instead of blushing when a modest man looks at her, or speaks to her, she can bear, without any such emotion, to stare an impudent fellow 25 in the face, and sometimes to utter what, if he be not very impudent indeed, may put him to the blush. Hence all those agreeable ingredients which form the humour of a rampant woman of - the town.

I cannot quit this part of my subject, in which I have been 30 obliged to deal a little more freely than I am inclined with the loveliest part of the creation, without preserving my own character of good-breeding, by saying that this last excess, is

by much the most rare; and that every individual among my female readers, either is already, or may be, when she pleases, an example of a contrary behaviour.

The second general reason why humour so much abounds 5 in this nation, seems to me to arise from the great number of people, who are daily raised by trade to the rank of gentry, without having had any education at all; or, to use no improper phrase, without having served an apprenticeship to this calling. But I have dwelt so long on the other branch, that I have no 10 room at present to animadvert on this; nor is it indeed necessary I should, since most readers with the hints I have already given them, will easily suggest to themselves, a great number of humorous characters with which the public have been furnished this way. I shall conclude by wishing, that this excellent 15 source of humour may still continue to flow among us, since, though it may make us a little laughed at, it will be sure to make us the envy of all the nations of Europe.

XXX

AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION

Man is generally represented as an animal formed for and delighting in society in this state alone, it is said, his various 20 talents can be exerted, his numberless necessities relieved, the dangers he is exposed to can be avoided, and many of the pleasures he eagerly affects, enjoyed. If these assertions be, as I think they are, undoubtedly and obviously certain, those few who have denied man to be a social animal, have left us 25 these two solutions of their conduct: either that there are men as bold in denial as can be found in assertion; and as Cicero says, there is no absurdity which some philosopher or other hath not asserted; so we may say, there is no truth

society

so glaring, that some have not denied it. Or else; that these rejectors of society borrow all their information from their own savage dispositions, and are indeed themselves, the only exceptions to the above general rule.

But to leave such persons to those who have thought them 5 more worthy of an answer; there are others who are so seemingly fond of this social state, that they are understood absolutely to confine it to their own species; and, entirely excluding the tamer and gentler, the herding and flocking parts of the creation, from all benefits of it, to set up this as one grand general distinction, 10 between the human and the brute species.

Shall we conclude this denial of all society to the nature of brutes, which seems to be in defiance of every day's observation, to be as bold, as the denial of it to the nature of men? Or, may we not more justly derive the error from an improper 15 understanding of this word society in too confined and special a sense? In a word; do those who utterly deny it to the brutal nature, mean any other by society than conversation?

Now if we comprehend them in this sense, as I think we very reasonably may, the distinction appears to me to be truly 20 just; for though other animals are not without all use of society, yet this noble branch of it seems, of all the inhabitants of this globe, confined to man only; the narrow power of communicating some few ideas of lust, or fear, or anger, which may be observable in brutes, falling infinitely short of 25 what is commonly meant by conversation, as may be deduced from the origination of the word itself, the only accurate guide to knowledge. The primitive and literal sense of this word is, I apprehend, to turn round together; and in its more copious usage we intend by it, that reciprocal interchange of ideas, 30 by which truth is examined, things are, in a manner, turned | round, and sifted, and all our knowledge communicated to each other.

Converso