5 From this account of what you should not do, you may easily judge of what you should do; and a due attention to the manners of people of fashion, and who have seen the world, will make it habitual and familiar to you. but as it adds lustre to the more solid advantages both of the heart and mind. I have often touched upon good breeding to you before; so that this letter shall be upon the next necessary qualification to it, which is a genteel, easy manner, and carriage, wholly free from those odd tricks, ill habits, and awkwardnesses, which even many very worthy and sensible people have in their behaviour. However trifling a genteel manner may sound, it is of 10 many proofs of having kept bad and low com There is likewise an awkwardness of expression and words, most carefully to be avoided; such as false English, bad pronunciation, old sayings, and common proverbs; which are so pany. For example; if, instead of saying that tastes are different, and that every man has his own peculiar one, you should let off a proverb, and say, That what is one man's meat is they like, as the good man said when he kissed his cow; everybody would be persuaded that you had never kept company with anybody above footmen and housemaids. Attention will do all this; and without attention, nothing is to be done; want of attention, which is really want of thought, is either folly or madness. You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe, at once, all the people in the room; their motions, their looks, and their words, and yet without staring at them, and seeming to be an observer, this quick and unobserved observation is of infinite advantage in life, and is to be acquired with care; and, on the contrary, what is called absence, which is a thoughtlessness, and want of attention about what is doing, makes a man so like either a fool or a madman, that, for my very great consequence towards pleasing in private life, especially the women; which, one time or other, you will think worth pleasing; and I have known many a man from his awkwardness, give people such a dislike of him at 15 another man's poison; or else, Everyone as first, that all his merit could not get the better of it afterwards. Whereas a genteel manner prepossesses people in your favour, bends them towards you, and makes them wish to like you. Awkwardness can proceed from two causes; 20 either from not having kept good company, or from not having attended to it. As for your keeping good company, I will take care of that; do you take care to observe their ways and manners, and to form your own upon 25 them. Attention is absolutely necessary to this, as indeed it is for everything else; and a man without attention is not fit to live in the world. When an awkward fellow first comes into the room, it is highly probable, that his 30 sword gets between his legs, and throws him down, or makes him stumble at least; when he has recovered this accident, he goes and places himself in the very place of the whole room where he should not; then he soon lets his hat 35 part, I see no real difference. A fool never has fall down, and, in taking it up again, throws down his cane; in recovering his cane, his hat falls down a second time; so that he is a quarter of an hour before he is in order again. If he drinks tea or coffee, he certainly scalds his 40 mouth, and lets either the cup or the saucer fall, and spills the tea or coffee in his breeches. At dinner, his awkwardness distinguishes itself particularly as he has more to do: there he holds his knife, fork, and spoon differently from 45 other people; eats with his knife to the great danger of his mouth, picks his teeth with his fork, and puts his spoon which has been in his throat twenty times, into the dishes again. If thought; a madman has lost it; and an absent man is, for the time, without it. Adieu! Direct your next to me, Chez Monsieur Chabert, Banquier, à Paris; and take care I find the improvements I expect, at my return. STYLE (From Letter CCIII) I have written to you so often of late upon good breeding, address, les manières liantes,1 the graces, etc. that I shall confine this letter to another subject, pretty near akin to them, and which, I am sure, you are full as deficient he is to carve, he can never hit the joint; but, 50 in; I mean, style. Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received as your person, though ever so well proportioned, would, if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters. It is not every understanding that can judge of matter; but every ear can and does judge more or less 1 Pleasing manners. A person of the House of Commons, speaking two years ago upon naval affairs, asserted that we had then the finest navy upon the face of the yearth. This happy mixture of blunder 5 and vulgarism, you may easily imagine, was matter of immediate ridicule; but I can assure you that it continues so still, and will be remembered as long as he lives and speaks. Another, speaking in defence of a gentleman of style; and were I either to speak or write to the public, I should prefer moderate matter, adorned with all the beauties and elegancies of style, to the strongest matter in the world, ill-worded and ill-delivered. Your business is Negotiation abroad, and Oratory in the House of Commons at home. What figure can you make in either case if your style be inelegant, I do not say bad? Imagine yourself writing an office-letter to a Secretary of 10 upon whom a censure was moved, happily State, which letter is to be read by the whole Cabinet Council, and very possibly afterwards laid before Parliament; any one barbarism, solecism, or vulgarism in it would, in a very few days, circulate through the whole king- 15 dom to your disgrace and ridicule. For instance; I will suppose you had written the following letter from the Hague; to the Secretary of State at London; and leave you to suppose the consequences of it. said that he thought that gentleman was more liable to be thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that liable can never be used in a good sense. 3 You have with you three or four of the best English authors, Dryden, Atterbury, and Swift; read them with the utmost care, and with a particular care to their language, and they may possibly correct that curious in20 felicity of diction, which you acquired at Westminster. Mr. Harte excepted, I will admit that you have met with very few English abroad who could improve your style; and with many, I dare say, who speak as ill as yourself, and it may be worse; you must therefore take the more pains, and consult your authors and Mr. Harte the more. I need not tell you how attentive the Romans and Greeks, particularly the Athenians were to this object. It is also a study among the Italians and the French, witness their respective Academies and Dictionaries, for improving and fixing their languages. To our shame be it spoken, it is less attended to here than in any polite country; but that is no reason why you should not attend to it; on the contrary it will distinguish you the more. Cicero says, very truly, that it is glorious to excel other men in that very article, in which men excel brutes, speech. My Lord-I had last night, the honour of your Lordship's letter of the 24th; and will set about doing the orders contained therein; and if so be that I can get that affair done by the next post, I will not fail for to give your 25 Lordship an account of it by next post. I have told the French Minister, as how, that if that affair be not soon concluded, your Lordship would think it all long of him; and that he must have neglected for to have wrote to his Court 30 about it. I must beg leave to put your Lordship in mind, as how, that I am now full three quarters in arrear; and if so be that I do not very soon receive at least one half year, I shall cut a very bad figure; for this here place is very 35 dear. I shall be vastly beholden to your Lordship for that there mark of your favour; and so I rest, or remain, Your, etc. You will tell me, possibly that this is a caricatura of an illiberal and inelegant style; 40 I will admit it: but I assure you, at the same time, that a despatch with less than half these faults would blow you up forever. It is by no means sufficient to be free from faults in speaking and writing; you must do both correctly 45 and elegantly. In faults of this kind it is not ille optimus qui minimis urgetur;2 but he is unpardonable that has any at all, because it is his own fault: he need only attend to, observe, and imitate the best authors. Constant experience has shown me, that great purity and elegance of style, with a graceful elocution, cover a multitude of faults in either a speaker or a writer. For my own part, I confess (and I believe most people are of my mind) that if a speaker should ungracefully mutter or stammer out to me the sense of an angel, deformed by barbarisms and solecisms, or larded with vulgarisms, he should 50 never speak to me a second time, if I could help it. Gain the heart, or you gain nothing; the eyes and the ears are only the road to the heart. Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts though they will secure them when It is a very true saying, that a man must be born a poet, but that he may make himself an orator; and the very first principle of an orator is, to speak his own language, particularly, with the utmost purity and elegance. A man 55 will be forgiven, even great errors, in a foreign language; but in his own even the least slips are justly laid hold of and ridiculed. 2 He is the best who is the least burdened. gained. Pray have that truth ever in your mind. Engage the eyes by your address, air, and motions; soothe the ears by the elegance and harmony of your diction; the heart will certainly follow, and the whole man or woman will as certainly follow the heart. I must repeat it to you over and over again, that with all the knowledge which you may have at present or hereafter acquire, and with all the merit that ever man had, if you have not a 10 suade me to that, sir, if you can. Though I graceful address, liberal and engaging manners, a prepossessing air, and a good degree of eloquence in speaking and writing, you will be nobody; but will have the daily mortification of seeing people, with not one-tenth part of your 15 merit or knowledge, get the start of you and disgrace you both in company and in business. As soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked 5 Jones, "What man was that in the strange dress; something," said he, "like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it is not armour, is it?" Jones answered, "That is the ghost." To which Partridge replied, with a smile, "Per Henry Fielding 1707-1754 PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAY (From Tom Jones, 1749) can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet I am certain I should know one if I saw him, better than that comes to. No, no, sir, ghosts don't appear in such dresses as that, neither." In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighbourhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue, till the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick, which he had 20 denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling, that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior upon the stage? "O la! sir," said he, "I perceive now 3 Mr. Jones having spent three hours in read- 25 it is what you told me. I am not afraid of ing and kissing the aforesaid letter,1 and being at last, in a state of good spirits, from the lastmentioned considerations, he agreed to carry an appointment, which he had before made, into execution. This was, to attend Mrs. 30 Miller, and her younger daughter, into the gallery at the playhouse and to admit Mr. Partridge as one of the company. For as Jones had really that taste for humour which many affect, he expected to enjoy much enter- 35 tainment in the criticisms of Partridge, from whom he expected the simple dictates of nature, unimproved, indeed, but likewise unadulterated, by art. anything; for I know it is but a play. And if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much company; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the only person." "Why, who," cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a coward here besides thyself?" "Nay, you may call me coward, if you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay: go along with you! Ay, to be sure! Who's fool then? Will you? Lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness!-Whatever happens, it is good enough for you.Follow you? I'd follow the devil as soon. can put on what likeness he pleases.--Oh! here he is again. No farther! No, you have gone far enough already; farther than I'd have gone for all the king's dominions." Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, "Hush, hush! dear sir, don't you hear him?" And during the whole speech of the ghost, he sat with his eyes partly fixed on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; the same passions In the first row then of the first gallery did 40 Nay, perhaps it is the devil-for they say he Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge, take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played he said, "It was a wonder how so 45 many fiddlers could play at one time, without putting one another out." While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs. Miller, "Look, look, Madam, the very picture of the man in the end of the common- 50 which succeeded each other in Hamlet, sucprayer book before the gunpowder-treason service." Nor could he help observing with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, "That here were candles enow burnt in one night, to keep an honest poor family for a whole twelve- 55 month." 1 i. e., a letter from Sophia Western, with whom Tom Jones, the hero of the story, is in love. 2 A country barber and schoolmaster, who has become the follower and companion of Tom Jones. ceeding likewise in him. When the scene was over Jones said, "Why, Partridge, you exceed my expectations. You enjoy the play more than I conceived possible." David Garrick (1717-79), the friend of Johnson, Reynolds, and Goldsmith, and the greatest English actor of his time. Garrick began his career on the stage in 1741, his Richard III, produced in that year, was immediately successful; he played many and varied parts, and retired from the stage in 1776. doings. Ay, go about your business, I hate the sight of you." Our critic was now pretty silent till the play, which Hamlet introduces before the king. 5 This he did not at first understand, till Jones explained it to him; but he no sooner entered into the spirit of it, than he began to bless himself that he had never committed murder. Then turning to Mrs. Miller, he asked her, "Nay, sir," answered Partridge, "if you are not afraid of the devil, I can't help it; but to be sure, it is natural to be surprised at such things, thought I know there is nothing in them: not that it was the ghost that surprised me, neither; for I should have known that to be only a man in a strange dress; but when I saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that which took hold of me." "And dost thou imagine then, Partridge," cries Jones, 10 "If she did not imagine the king looked as if "that he was really frightened?" "Nay, sir,' said Partridge, "did not you yourself observe afterwards, when he found it was his own father's spirit, and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by de- 15 much higher chair than he sits upon. No grees, and he was struck dumb with sorrow as it were, just as I should have been, had it been my own case? But hush! O la! what noise is that? There he is again-Well, to be certain, though I know there is nothing at all in it, 20 surprise at the number of skulls thrown upon I am glad I am not down yonder, where those men are." Then turning his eyes upon Hamlet, “Ay, you may draw your sword; what signifies a sword against the power of the devil?" he was touched; though he is," said he, "a good actor, and doth all he can to hide it. Well, I would not have so much to answer for as that wicked man there hath, to sit upon a wonder he run away; for your sake I'll never trust an innocent face again." The grave digging scene next engaged the attention of Partridge, who expressed much the stage. To which Jones answered, "That it was one of the most famous burial-places about town." "No wonder then," cried Partridge, "that the place is haunted. But I never 25 saw in my life a worse grave-digger. I had a sexton, when I was clerk, that should have dug three graves while he is digging one. The fellow handles a spade as if it was the first time he had ever had one in his hand. Ay, ay, you may sing. You had rather sing than work, I believe." Upon Hamlet's taking up the skull, he cried out, "Well, it is strange to see how fearless some men are: I never could bring myself to touch anything belonging to a dead During the second act, Partridge made very few remarks. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the king's countenance. "Well," said he, "how people may be deceived by faces? 30 Nulla fides fronti1 is, I find, a true saying. Who would think, by looking in the king's face, that he had ever committed a murder?" He then enquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprised, gave him no 35 man, on any account. He seemed frightened other satisfaction, than "that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire." Partridge sat in fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghost made his next ap enough too, at the ghost, I thought. Nemo omnibus horis sapit."5 Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the end of which Jones pearance, Partridge cried out, "There, sir, 40 asked him, "Which of the players he had now; what say you now? is he frightened now, or no? As much frightened as you think me, and, to be sure, nobody can help some fears. I would not be in so bad a condition as What's liked best?" To this he answered with some appearance of indignation at the question, "The king without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not his name, squire Hamlet, is there, for all the 45 of the same opinion with the town; for they world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit? As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth." "Indeed, you saw right,' answered Jones. "Well, well," cried Partridge, “I know it is only a play: and besides, 50 if there was anything in all that, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person. There, there, ay, no wonder you are in such a passion, shake the 55 vile wretch to pieces. If she was my own mother, I would serve her so. To be sure all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked Do not trust in the face. are all agreed, that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you call it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord help me, any man, that is, any good man, that had such a mother, would have done just exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but indeed, Madam, No one is wise at all times. though I was never at a play in London, yet I have seen acting before in the country; and the king for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other. Anybody may see he is an actor." Thus ended the adventure of the playhouse, where Partridge had afforded great mirth, not only to Jones and Mrs. Miller, but to all who sat within hearing, who were more attentive to what he said, than to anything that passed on the stage. He durst not go to bed all that night, for fear of the ghost; and for many nights after sweated two or three hours before he went to sleep, with the same apprehensions, and waked 15 several times in great horrors, crying out, "Lord have mercy upon us! There it is." Samuel Johnson 1709-1784 THE LADY'S MISERY IN A (The Rambler, No. 124, Saturday, May 25, 1751) loud huntsman, or the formal parson, the roar of obstreperous jollity, or the dulness of prudential instruction; without any retreat, but to the gloom of solitude, where they will 5 yet find greater inconveniences, and must learn, however unwillingly, to endure themselves. In winter, the life of the polite and gay may be said to roll on with a strong and rapid 10 current; they float along from pleasure to pleasure, without the trouble of regulating their own motions, and pursue the course of the stream in all the felicity of inattention; content that they find themselves in progression, and careless whither they are going. But the months of summer are a kind of sleeping stagnation, without wind or tide, where they are left to force themselves forward by their own labour, and to direct their passage by 20 their own skill; and where, if they have not some internal principle of activity, they must be stranded upon shallows, or lie torpid in a perpetual calm. There are, indeed, some to whom this uni25 versal dissolution of gay societies affords a welcome opportunity of quitting, without disgrace, the post which they have found themselves unable to maintain; and of seeming to retreat only at the call of nature, from assem The season of the year is now come, in which the theatres are shut, and the card-tables forsaken; the regions of luxury are for a while 30 blies where, after a short triumph of unconunpeopled, and pleasure leads out her votaries to groves and gardens, to still scenes and erratic1 gratifications. Those who have passed many months in a continual tumult of diversion; who have never opened their eyes in the 35 morning but upon some new appointment; nor slept at night without a dream of dances, music, and good hands, or of soft sighs, and humble supplications; must now retire to distant provinces, where the syrens of flattery 40 are scarcely to be heard, where beauty sparkles without praise or envy, and wit is repeated only by the echo. As I think it one of the most important duties of social benevolence, to give warning of 45 the approach of calamity, when, by timely prevention, it may be turned aside, or, by preparatory measures, be more easily endured, I cannot feel the increasing warmth, or observe the lengthening days, without considering the 50 condition of my fair readers, who are now preparing to leave all that has so long filled up their hours, all from which they have been accustomed to hope for delight; and who, till fashion proclaims the liberty of returning to 55 the seats of mirth and elegance, must endure the rugged 'squire, the sober housewife, the 1 Lat. errare, to wander, then to stray, hence literally, the pleasure of roaming. tested superiority, they are overpowered by some new intruder of softer elegance, or sprightlier vivacity. By these, hopeless of victory, and yet ashamed to confess a conquest, the summer is regarded as a release from the fatiguing service of celebrity, a dismission to more certain joys, and a safer empire. They now solace themselves with the influence which they shall obtain, where they have no rival to fear; and with the lustre which they shall effuse, when nothing can be seen of brighter splendour. They imagine, while they are preparing for their journey, the admiration with which the rustics will crowd about them; plan the laws of a new assembly; or contrive to delude provincial ignorance with a fictitious mode. A thousand pleasing expectations swarm in the fancy; and all the approaching weeks are filled with distinctions, honours, and authority. But others, who have lately entered the world, or have yet had no proofs of its inconstancy and desertion, are cut off, by this cruel interruption, from the enjoyment of their prerogatives, and doomed to lose four months in unactive obscurity. Many complaints do vexation and desire extort from those exiled 2 Conquest has here a passive sense; ashamed to confess that they have been conquered. |