by furnishing them with a defence against the smaller fishes, their fkin being thus rendered firm and rough to the touch. The fishes of the genus tetraodon, have very fine fcales like pins, with the points projecting: this direction was indifpenfable in fishes that inflate their bodies at pleasure, and then contract them into a very finall volume. Many species have boney fcales, very hard, and connected together, fuch as the loricaria; others, like the fyngnathus, have cartilaginous fcales fomewhat flexible, large, and fixed in an invariable order on a thick fkin. Scales feem to be common to fish in general, and their chief use seems to be to furnish these animals with a defence against external injuries. Fishes are alfo provided with offeous tubercules, with fpines, with fleshy appendages, and even fometimes with hairs. This laft cafe is indeed very rare, having been obferved but on a very few species ; but remarkably on a fish of the genus of falmo, figured by M. Duhamel, under the name of the Capelan d'Amerique. Letter from P. D. Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to his Son *. Bath, November the 11th, 1752. MY DEAR FRIEND, T is a very old and a very true maxim, that those kings reign the most secure, and the most absolute, who reign in the hearts of their people. Their popularity is a better guard than their army; and the affections of their subjects a better pledge of their obedience than their fears. This rule is, in proportion, full as true, though upon a different fcale with regard to private people. A man who poffeffes that great art of pleafing univerfally, and of gain ing the affections of thofe with whom he converfes, poffeffes a ftrength which nothing else can give him a ftrength which facilitates and helps his rife ; and which, in cafe of accidents, breaks his fall. Few people of your age fufficiently confider this great point of popularity; and, when they grow older and wifer, ftrive in vain to recover what they loft by their negligence. There are three principal canfes that hinder them from acquiring this useful strength; pride, inattention, and mauvaife honte. The first, I will not, I cannot suspect you of; it is too much below your underftanding. You cannot, and I am fure you do not think yourself superior by nature to the Savoyard who cleans your room, or the footman who cleans your fhoes; but you may rejoice, and with reason, at the difference that fortune has made in your favour. Enjoy all thofe advantages; but without infulting those who are unfortunate enough to want them, or even doing any thing unneceffarily that may remind them of that want. For my own part, I am more upon my guard as to my behaviour to my fervants, and others who are called my inferiors, than I am to. wards my equals; for fear of being fufpected of that mean and ungenerous fentiment, of defiring to make others feel that difference which fortune has, and perhaps too undefervedly, made between us. Young people do not enough attend to this; *From Supplement to the Letters. Juft published. but Letter from the Earl of Chesterfield to his Son. 243 ry unpleasant, and that one pays, with fome unwillingness, that tribute of attention to dull and tedious men, and to old and ugly women ; but it is the lowest price of popurity and general applaufe, which are very well worth purchafing, were they much dearer. I conclude this head with this advice to you: Gain, by particular affiduity and addrefs, the men and women you want; and, by an univerfal civility and attention, please every body fo far, as to have their good word, if not their good will; or at least as to fecure a partial neutrality, but falfely imagine that the imperative mood, and a rough tone of authority and decifion, are indications of fpirit and courage. Inattention is always looked upon, tho' fometimes unjustly, as the effect of pride and contempt; and where it is thought fo, is never forgiven. In this article, young people are generally exceedingly to blame, and offend extremely. Their whole attention is engroffed by their particular fet of acquaintance; and by fome few glaring and exalted objects of rank, beauty, or parts: all the reft they think fo little worth their care, that they neglect even common civility towards them. I will frankly confefs to you, that this was one of my great faults when I was of your age. Very attentive to please that narrow court-circle in which I stood enchanted, I confidered every thing elfe as bourgeois, and unworthy of common civility; I paid my court affiduoufly and skilfully enough to fhining and diftinguished figures, fuch as minifters, wits, and beauties; but then I moft abfurdly and imprudently neglected, and confequently offended, all others. By this folly I made myself a thousand enemies of both sexes; who, tho' I thought them very infignificant, found means to hurt me effentially, where I wanted to recommend myself the most, I was thought proud, though I was only imprudent. A general eafy civility and attention to the common run of ugly women, and of middling men, both which I fillily thought, called and treated as odd people, would have made me as many friends, as by the contrary conduct I made myself enemies. All this too was à pure perte; for I might equally, and even more fuccessfully, have made my court where I had particular views to gratify. I will allow that this task is often ve Mauvaise honte not only hinders young people from making a great many friends, but makes them a great many enemies. They are afhamed of doing the thing that they know to be right, and would otherwife do, for fear of the momentary laugh of fome fine gentleman or lady, or of fome mauvais plaifant. I have been in this cafe; and have often wifhed an obscure acquaintance at the devil, for meeting and taking notice of me, when I was in what I thought and called fine company. I have returned their notice fhyly, aukwardly, and confequently offenfively, for fear of a momentary joke; not confidering, as I ought to have done, that the very people who would have joked upon me at first, would have efteemed me the more for it afterwards. An example explains a rule beft: Suppofe you were walking in the Tuilleries with fome fine folks, and that you should unexpectedly meet your old acquaintance, little crooked Grierfon; what would you do? I will tell you what you should do, by telling you what I would now do in that cafe myself. I would run up to him, and embrace him; fay fome kind things to him, and then return to my company. There I fhould be immediately afkg 2 G ed: ed: Mais qu'eft ce que c'est donc que ce petit Sapajou que vous avez embraffe fi tendrement? Pour cela l'accolade a été charmante *; with a great deal more feftivity of that fort. To this I fhould anfwer, without being the leaft afhamed, but en badinant: O je ne vous dirai pas qui c'eft; c'eft un petit ami que je tiens incognito, qui a fon merite, et qui, à force d'être connu, fait ou blier fa figure. Que me donnerezvous, et je vous le prefenterait? And then, with a little more ferioufnefs, I would add: Mais d'ailleurs c'est que je ne défavoue jamais mes connoiffances, à cause de leur état ou de leur figure. Il faut avoir bien peu de fentiments pour le faire ‡. This would at once put an end to that momentary pleafantry; and give them all a better opinion of me than they had before. Suppofe another cafe; and that fome of the fineft ladies du bon ton fhould come into a room, and find you fitting by, and talking politely to la vieille Marquife de Bellefonds, the joke would, for a moment, turn upon that tête à tête. He bien! avezvous à la fin fixé la belle Marquife? La partie eft-elle faite pour la petite maifon? le fouper fera galant fans doute. Mais ne fais-tu donc point fcrupule de féduire une jeune et aimable perfonne comme celle-la ||? To this I fhould anfwer: La partie n'étoit pas encore tout-a-fait liée, vous nous avez interrompu ; mais avec le tems que faiton? D'ailleurs moquezvous de mes amours tant qu'il vous plaira, je vous dirai qui je respecte tant les jeunes dames, qui je refpecte même les vieilles, pour l'avoir été. Après cela il y a fouvent des liaisons entre les vieilles et les jeunes §. This would at once turn the pleasantry into an efteem for your good fenfe and your good breeding. Pursue fteadily, and without fear or fhame, whatever your reafon tells you is right, and what you fee is practifed by people of more experience than yourfelf, and of established characters of good fenfe and good breeding. After all this, perhaps you will fay, that it is impoffible to please every body. I grant it: but it does not follow that one fhould not therefore endeavour to please as many as one can. Nay, I will go farther, and admit, that it is impoffible for any man not to have fome enemies. But this truth, from long experience, I affert, that he who has the moft friends, and the feweft enemies, is the ftrongest; will rise the higheft with the least envy; and fall, if he does fall, the gentleft and the moft pitied. This is furely an object worth purfuing. Purfue it according to the rules. I have here given you. I will add one obfervation more, and two examples to enforce it; and then, as the parfons fay, conclude. There And who is this little fcaramouch that you have been embracing fo tenderly? What a delicate hug it was! I won't tell you who he is; only a little friend of mine I have here incog. a man of merit, I affure you: when one knows him, one forgets his figure. What will you give me now, and I will introduce him to you? But I never difown my acquaintances on account of their figure or condition. He must have little affection that can do fo. Well! you have at last fixed the fair Marquise, eh? and the affignation is made the fupper will, no doubt, be delightful. But have you no confcience, to feduce a maid fo lovely and fo young? $ The affignation was not quite fixed, for you interrupted us; but who knows? time may do much. However, you may laugh at my amours as you please, but I muft inform you, that I have fo much refpect for young ladies, that I respect even the old, for having once been young. After all, connections between old ladies and young fellows are not so very rare. Letter from the Earl of Chesterfield to his Son. There is no one creature fo obfcure, fo low, or so poor, who may not, by the strange and unaccountable changes and viciffitudes of human affairs, fomehow or other, and fome time or other, become an ufeful friend or a troublesome enemy, to the greatest and the richest. The late Duke of Ormond was almost the weakest, but, at the fame time, the best bred and most popular man in this kingdom. His education in courts and camps, joined to an eafy, gentle nature, had given him that habitual affability, thofe engaging manners, and thofe mechanical attentions, that almoft fupplied the place of every talent he wanted; and he wanted almost every. one. They procured him the love of all men, without the esteem of any. He was impeached after the death of Queen Anne, only because that, having been engaged in the fame measures with those who were neceffarily to be impeached, his impeachment, for form's fake, became neceffary. But he was impeached without acrimony, and without the leaft intention that he should fuffer, notwithstanding the party violence of thofe times. The queftion for his impeachment, in the House of Commons, was carried by many fewer votes, than any other queftion of impeachment; and Earl Stanhope, then Mr Stanhope, and Secretary of State, who impeached him, very foon after negotiated and concluded his accommodation with the late King; to whom he was to have been presented the next day. But the late Bishop of Rochefter, Atterbury, who thought that the Jacobite caufe might fuffer by lofing the Duke of Ormond, went in all hafte, and prevailed with the poor weak man to run away; af faring him, that he was only to be gulled into a difgraceful fubmiffion, and not to be pardoned in confequence of it. When his fubfequent 245 attainder paffed, it excited mobs and disturbances in town. He had not a perfonal enemy in the world, and had a thousand friends. Ail this was fingly owing to his natural defire of pleafing; and to the mechanical means that his education, not his parts, had given him of doing it.-The other inftance is the late Duke of Marlborough, who ftudied the art of pleafing, because he well knew the importance of it: he enjoyed and used it more than ever man did. He gained whoever he had a mind to gain; and he had a mind to gain every body, because he knew that every body was more or lefs worth gaining. Though his power, as Minifter and General, made him many political and party enemies, they did not make him one perfonal one; and the very people who would gladly have difplaced, difgraced, and perhaps attainted the Duke of Marlborough, at the fame time perfonally loved Mr Churchill, even tho' his private character was blemished by fordid avarice, the most unamiable of all .ices. He had wound up and turned his whole machine to pleafe and engage. He had an inimitable fweetnefs and gentleness in his countenance, a tenderness in his manner of fpeaking, a graceful dignity in every motion, and an u niverfal and minute attention to the leaft things that could poffibly please the leaft perfon. This was all art in him; art, of which he well knew and enjoyed the advantages; for no man ever had more interior ambition, pride, and avarice, than he had. Though you have more than most people of your age, you have yet very little experience and knowledge of the world; now I wish to inoculate mine upon you, and thereby prevent both the dangers and the marks of youth and inexperience. If you receive the matter kindly, and and obferve my prefcriptions fcru pulously, you will fecure the future advantages of time, and join them to the prefent inestimable ones of one and twenty. I moft earneftly recommend one thing more to you, during your prefent ftay at Paris: I own it is not the most agreeable; but I affirm it to be the most useful thing in the world to one of your age; and therefore I do hope that you will force and constrain yourself to do it. I mean, to converfe frequently, or rather to be in company frequently, with both men and women much your fuperiors in age and rank. I am very fenfible that, at your age, vous y entrez pour peu de chofe, et même fouvent pour rien, et que vous y paferez méme quelques mauvais quart-d'heures; but no matter; you will be a folid gainer by it: you will fee, hear, and learn the turn and manners of thofe people; you will gain premature experience by it; and it will give you a habit of engaging and respectful attentions. Veríailles, as much as poffible, tho' probably unentertaining: the Palais Royal often, however dull: foreign minifters of the first rank, frequently: and women, though old, who are refpectable and refpected for their rank or parts; fuch as Madame de Puifieux, Madame de Nivernois, Madame d'Aiguillon, Madame Geoffrain, &c. This fujettion, if it be one to you, will coft you but very little in these three or four months that you are to pass at Paris, and will bring you in a great deal; nor will it, nor ought it, to hinder you from being in more entertaining company great part of the day. Vous pouvez, fi vous le voulez, tirer un grand parti de ces quatre mois. May God make you do so, and bless you! Adieu. On the Character of Lord Chesterfield. IT feems to be pretty generally received as an inconteftible opinion-that Dr Samuel Johnson was a compound of every thing that is morally good, and Philip, the late Earl of Chefierfield, of every thing that is morally evil. In a late publication, entitled, Two Dialogues, containing a Comparative View of the Lives, Characters, and Writings, of Philip the late Earl of Chesterfield, and Dr Samuel Johnfon, this opinion is powerfully controverted. As thefe illuftrious Writers have, in fome refpects, been confidered as rivals, their excellencies and defects are in that matterly performance delineated with great accuracy and elegance. The caufe of each is pleaded by their refpective advocates, with the affectionate zeal of an enlightened admirer; while, at the fame time, the whole debate is conducted with a liberal difdain of vulgar prejudice, and a strict attention to the dictates of truth and juftice. So much having of late been faid and fung concerning Dr Johnfon, we think it unneceffary at prefent to refume that fubject. An attempt to defend Lord Chefterfield, and to vindicate him from the grand accufation of "pouring the oil of licentious admonition on the blazing fire of youth, and of preaching adultery to his fon," will probably afford a more agreeable entertainment to our readers. "If I can fhew you," fays the Advocate of Chesterfield, "that the accomplished Earl had, in truth, as much |