With gloomy persons, gloomy topics likewise should be (as indeed they will be) excluded, such as ill health, bad weather, bad news, or forebodings of such, &c. &c. To preserve the temper calm and pleasant, it is of unspeakable importance, that we always accustom ourselves through life to make the best of things, to view them on their bright side, and so represent them to others, for our mutual comfort and encouragement. Few things (especially if, as Christians, we take the other world into the account) but have a bright side : diligence and practice will easily find it. Perhaps there is no circumstance better calculated than this, to render conversation equally pleasing and profitable.

In the conduct of it, be not eager to interrupt others, or uneasy at being yourself interrupted; since you speak either to amuse or instruct the company, or to receive those benefits from it. Give all, therefore, leave to speak in turn. Hear with patience, and answer with precision. Inattention is ill manners: it shows contempt; and contempt is never forgiven.

Trouble not the company with your own private concerns, as you do not love to be troubled with those of others. Yours are as little to them as theirs are to you. You will need no other rule

whereby to judge of this matter.

Contrive, but with dexterity and propriety, that each person may have an opportunity of discoursing on the subject with which he is best acquainted. He will be pleased, and you will be informed. By observing this rule, every one has it in his power to assist in rendering conversation agreeable; since,

though he may not choose, or be qualified to say much himself, he can propose questions to those who are able to answer them.

Avoid stories, unless short, pointed, and quite a-propos. "He who deals in them," says Swift, "must either have a very large stock, or a good memory, or must often change his company." Some have a set of them strung together like onions: they take possession of the conversation, by an early introduction of one; aud then you must have the whole rope, and there is an end of every thing else, perhaps, for that meeting, though you may have heard all twenty times before.

Talk often, but not long. The talent of haranguing in private company is insupportable. Senators and barristers are apt to be guilty of this fault and members, who never harangue in the house, will often do it out of the house: if the majority of the company be naturally silent, or cautious, the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can start new subjects. Forbear, however, if possible, to broach a second, before the first is out, lest your stock should not last, and you should be obliged to come back to the old barrel. There are those who will repeatedly cross upon, and break into the conversation, with a fresh topic, till they have touched upon all, and exhausted none. Economy here is necessary for most people.

Laugh not at your own wit and humour: leave that to the company.

When the conversation is flowing in a serious and useful channel, never interrupt it by an ill

timed jest. The stream is scattered, and cannot be again collected.

Discourse not in a whisper, or half voice, to your next neighbour: it is ill breeding, and in some degree a fraud; conversation-stock being, as one has well observed, a joint and common property.

In reflections on absent people, go no farther than you would go if they were present. "I resolve," says bishop Beveridge, "never to speak of a man's virtues before his face, nor of his faults behind his back" a golden rule! the observation of which, would, at one stroke, banish flattery and defama. tion from the earth.

Conversation is effected by circumstances, which, at first sight, may appear trifling, but really are not so. Some, who continue dumb while seated, become at once loquacious when they are (as the senatorial phrase is) upon their legs: others, whose powers languish in a close room, recover themselves on putting their heads into fresh air, as a shrovetide cock does when his head is put into fresh earth: a turn or two in the garden makes them good company. There is a magic sometimes in a large circle, which fascinates those who compose it into silence; and nothing can be done, or, rather, nothing can be said, till the introduction of a card-table breaks up the spell, and releases the valiant knights and fair damsels from captivity. A table indeed, of any kind, considered as a centre of union, is of eminent service to conversation at all times; and never do we more sensibly feel the truth of that old philosophical axiom, that nature "abhors a vacuum," than upon its removal. I have been told, that even in the blue-stocking society,

formed solely for the purpose of conversation, it was found, after repeated trials, impossible to get on, without one card-table. In that same venerable society, when the company is too widely extended to engage in the same conversation, a custom is said to prevail—and a very excellent one it isthat every gentleman, upon his entrance, selects his partner, as he would do at a ball; and when the conversation-dance is gone down, the company change partners, and begin afresh. Whether these things be so or not, most certain it is, that the lady or the gentleman deserves well of the society, who can devise any method, whereby so valuable an amusement can be heightened and improved. Z. BISHOP HORNE.

No. VIII.

SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1787.

Cui dicas sæpe videto.

THERE are many persons in the world, whose wit and whose judgment, like two parallel lines, never meet; who are still neither deficient in wit, nor destitute of judgment. An improper use of the former, or a temporary absence of the latter, usually renders both ineffectual.

To what purpose is judgment employed in making proper observations, and forming proper

opinions; or wit called forth to illustrate those observations, or display those opinions in all the ornament of well-turned language or elegant allusion, if they are, perchance, exhibited before au audience, prejudiced against the speaker, unwilling to attend to him, or incapable of understanding him? In such a case, the judgment must have been lulled to sleep, and the wit thrown away.

To my reflections upon this subject, I was led by a circumstance which not long ago happened to myself. An ingenious friend, with whom I was conversing, addressed to me some strictures upon a periodical publication, which, he observed, was then carrying on in Oxford, called the " Olla Podrida." After expatiating for some time in general terms, upon the small probability of success attendant on such a plan, owing to the political distraction of the nation, the exhausted state of materials necessary for such a work, and, in short, the general decay of readers and writers; he descended to be more particular in his criticisms; he could not help observing, that the characteristic of the first number was an affectation of modesty, and of the second an affectation of learning. Why else," added he, "was not the full translation of each passage in Homer admitted from Mr. Pope?" He then concluded his critique with some happy sarcasms upon Monsieur l'Auteur, at which he laughed violently, and I accompanied him as well as I could. I avoided entering into a minute defence of the gentleman, at whose expense we had been so agreeably entertained, lest I should discover myself to be too much interested in his behalf; but was content to observe, that it might be more diffi

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