ferve with almost nobody; for it is very difagreeable to feem referved, and very dangerous not to be fo. Few people find the true medium; many are ridicu loufly mysterious and referved upon trifles; and many imprudently communicate all they know.

The next thing to the choice of your friends is the choice of your company. Endeavour, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you. There you rife, as much as you fink with people below you; for (as I have mentioned before) you are, whatever the company you keep is. Do not mistake, when I fay company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least confideration: but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world confiders them.

I

There are two forts of good company; one, which is called the beau monde +, and confifts of thofe people who have the lead in courts, and in the gay part of life: the other confifts of those who are diftinguished by fome peculiar merit, or who excel in fome particu lar and valuable art or fcience. For my own part, ufed to think myfelf in company as much above me, when I was with Mr. Addifon and Mr. Pope, as if I had been with all the princes in Europe. What I mean by low company, which should by all means be avoided, is the company of thofe, who, abfolutely infignificant and contemptible in themselves, think they are honoured by being in your company, and who flatter every vice and every folly you have, in order to engage you to converfe with them. The pride of being the first of company is but too common; but it is very filly, and very prejudicial. Nothing in the world lets down a character more, than that wrong turn.

the

You may poffibly afk me, whether a man has it al ways in his power to get into the best company? and how?-I fay, Yes, he has, by deferving it; provided he is but in circumftances which enable him to appear upon the footing of a gentleman. Merit and goodbreeding will make their way every where. Know

The fashionable world.

ledge will introduce him, and good-breeding will endear him to the beft companies; for, as I have often told you, politenefs and good breeding are abfolutely neceffary to adorn any, or all other good qualities or talents. Without them, no knowledge, no perfection whatfoever, is feen in its beft light. The fcholar, without good-breeding, is a pedant; the philofopher, a cynic; the foldier, a brute; and every man difagree

able.

DEAR BOY,

LETTER XLIX.

The Art of Pleafing.

London, October the 16th.

THE art of pleafing is a very neceflary one to pof

fefs; but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules; and your own good-fenfe and obfervation will teach you more of it than I can. Do as you would be done by, is the fureft method that I know of pleafing. Obferve carefully what pleafes you in others, and probably the fame things in you will pleafe others. If you are pleased with the complai lance and attention of others to you, depend upon it, the fame complaifance and attention, on your part, will equally please them. Take the tone of the company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it; be terious or gay, as you find the present humour of the company this is an attention due from every individual to the majority. Do not tell stories in company; there is nothing more tedious and difagreeable: if by chance you know a very fhort story, and exceedingly applicable to the prefent fubject of conversation, tell it in as few words as poffible; and even then throw out that you do not love to tell ftories: but that the fhortness of it tempted you. Of all things, banifh the egotifm out. your converfation, and never think of entertaining. people with your own perfonal concerns, or private affairs; though they are interefting to you, they are tedious and impertinent to every body elfe: befides that

of

one cannot keep one's own private affairs too fecret. Whatever you think your own excellences may be, do not affectedly difplay them in company; ner labour, as many people do, to give that turn to the converfation which may fupply you with an opportunity of exhibiting them. If they are real, they will infallibly be difcovered, without your pointing them out yourself, and with much more advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and clamour, though you think or know yourfelf to be in the right; but give your opinion modeftly and coolly, which is the only way to convince; and if that does not do, try to change the converfation, by saying, with good humour," We fhall hardly convince one another, nor is it neceffary that we fhould; fo let us talk of fomething elfe."

Remember that there is a local propriety to be obferved in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in one company, may be, and often is, highly improper in another.

The jokes, the bonts mots, the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will feem flat and tedious, when related in another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant of one company, may give merit to a word, or a gefture, which would have none at all if divefted of thofe accidental eircumftan ces. Here people very commonly err; and, fond of fomething that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either infipid, or, it may be, offenfive, by being ill-timed, or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this filly preamble" I will tell you an excellent thing" or, "I will tell you the best thing in the world.' This raifes expectations, which, when abfolutely difappointed, make the relator of this excellent thing look, very defervedly, like a fool.

If you would particularly gain the affection and. friendship of particular people, whether men or women, do juftice to what you find out to be their predominant excellency, if they have one, and be tender to their prevailing weakness, which every body has, un

lefs it is of the nature of vice, or you can mend them by reproof. Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the ableft ftatesman of his time, or perhaps of any other, had the idle vanity of being thought the best poet too: he envied the great Corneille his reputation, and ordered a criticifm to be written upon the Cid. Thofe, therefore, who flattered fkilfully, faid little to him of his abilities in ftate affairs, or at least but en paffant, and as it might naturally occur. But the incenfe which they give him, the fmoke of which, they knew, would turn his head in their favour, was as abel efprit, and a poet. Why? Because he was sure of one excellency, and diftruftful as to the other. Every man's prevailing vanity may be easily discovered by obferving his favourite topic of converfation; for every man talks most of what he has most a mind to be thought to excel in. The late Sir Robert Walpole, (who was certainly an able man) was little open to flattery upon that head; for he was in no doubt himfelf about its but his prevailing weakness was, to be thought to have a polite and happy turn to gallantry, of which he had undoubtedly lets than any man living; it was his favourite and frequent fubject of converfation; which proved to thofe who had any penetration, that it was his prevailing weakness. Do not mistake me, and think that I mean to recommend to you abject and criminal flattery: no; flatter nobody's vices or crimes: on the contrary, abhor and difcourage them. But there is no living in the world without a complaifant indulgence for people's innocent weakneffes.

There are little attentions, likewife, which are infinitely engaging, and which fenfibly affect that degree of pride and felf-love which is infeparable from human-nature, as they are unquestionable proofs of the regard and confideration which we have for the perfons to whom we pay them. As, for example, to obferve the little habits, the likings, the antipathies, and the tastes, of those whom we would oblige, and then take care to provide them with the one, and to secure them from the other; giving them, genteely, to under

ftand, that you had obferved they liked fuch a difh, or fuch a room; for which reafon you had prepared it ; or, on the contrary, that having obferved they had an averfion to fuch a difh, a diflike to fuch a perfon, &c. you had taken care to avoid prefenting them. Such attention, to fuch trifles, obliges much more than greater things, as it makes people think themfelves almoft the only objects of your thoughts and

care.

Thefe are fome of the arcanas neceffary for your initiation in the great fociety of the world." I wish I had known them better at your age; I have paid the price of three-and-fifty years for them; and fhall not grudge it, if you reap the advantage. Adieu!

LETTER L.

I

On Travelling and Employment of time.

DEAR BOY,

London, Ober the goth.

AM very well pleafed with your Itinerarium, which you fent me from Ratisbon. It shows me that you obferve and inquire as you go, which is the true end of travelling. Thofe who travel heedlefsly from place to place, obferving only their diftance from each other, and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, fet out fools, and will certainly return fo. Thofe who only mind the raree-fhows of the places which they go through, fuch as fteeples, clocks, townhoufes, &c. get fo little by their travels, that they might as well ftay at home. But those who observe, and inquire into the fituation, the ftrength, the weaknefs, the trade, the manufactures, the government, and conftitution of every place they go to; who frequent the beft companies, and attend to their feveral manners and characters; thofe alone travel with advantage and as they fet out wife, return wifer.

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I would advise you always to get the shortest defcrip