park; nay, sometimes from a sermon to a ballroom!

To continue always in the same turn of humour, be it ever so graceful on some occasions, is nothing better than dancing smoothly out of time. Some people have such an eternal simper upon their face, that they will tell you the most melancholy story, or express the most pathetic concern, with a smile: others have such an earnest attention, that they will listen to a gossip's tale with the gravity of a philosopher.

All have some good qualities; something or other, in their character or conversation, that, rightly attended to, we may be the better for. When in company with people of mere good humour, we should weaken all the mirthful faculties of our mind, and take this time for unbending our more serious thoughts. We are not to consider whether one is of a proper rank, or another of an agreeable aspect, or whether we might not be better employed in our closets, or better engaged in company elsewhere; but accommodate ourselves to the present situation, and make the best of it. Be the company ever so dull, they are human creatures at least, capable of feeling pleasure or uneasiness, in some degree, of being obliged or disobliged ; and, therefore, if we are ever so dissatisfied ourselves, if we may contribute any way to the satisfaction of our stupid companions, good nature will find it no disagreeable employment, and it may well enough

be put in the balance against most of those we are so angry to be interrupted in.

Had I set my heart on such a favourite scheme; and am I disappointed? This is what children well educated can bear with great good humour, and are rewarded with sugar-plums. Shall people then, who have the use of reason, and the pleasure of reflection upon reasonable actions, be more childish than they, and add one disagreeable thing to another, by tying ill humour to the heels of disappointment?

The mind, that is absolutely wedded to its own opinions, will cherish them to a degree of folly and obstinacy that would be inconceivable but for frequent instances-very frequent indeed in this country, which is reckoned, I believe justly, to abound in humourists, more than almost any nation of the habitable globe. Whether this be one effect attending on the glorious stubbornness of the spirit of liberty, or whether we take some tincture from the November sullenness of the climate, I know not but our want of accommodableness is very perceivable in the reception which our common people usually give to foreigners: their language is ridiculed; their manners observed with a haughty kind of contempt; all minds seem to sit aloof to them, as if they were enemies, encroachers, that have nothing to do amongst us, no right to give us trouble, or put us out of our way.

If we would but learn to put ourselves a little in

the place of others, we should soon learn, with pleasure, to suit ourselves to their disposition: but we are apt to imagine, that every body must see every thing just in the same light that it appears to us: if they do not, it is very strange, and they are no companions for us. Thus, it seems monstrous in a foreigner to speak our language oddly, when we are so perfectly acquainted with it ourselves. We are prodigiously inclined to think people impertinent, for asking questions about what we know very well ourselves, unless indeed we happen to be in a humour of dictating and instructing; and then it is a crime of the same nature for people to know any thing before-hand, that we have a mind to tell them.

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Thus we forget our first opinions of places, things, and people, and wonder that others do not, at first sight, perceive them in the same light that we do, just at that time; though perhaps it is by dint of reflection that we have placed them in it. It may, however, be speaking too generally to say we. I am sure I have often experienced this in myself.

It was the distinguishing character of a poor idiot, whom I had occasion to see a good deal of, that he had so little of this accommodableness, as to be quite outrageous, upon the least alteration in any trifling circumstances he had been used to observe. He expressed his anger in one way indeed, and we express ours in another, or perhaps are wise enough to keep most of it to ourselves :

but there still remains enough to take off all the grace of what we do, or submit to, thus unwillingly; and the principle of folly, that makes us feel so strong a dislike, is the same in both: only this poor creature deserved pity, while in us it is a matter of choice.