cabin. I will not endeavour to describe his lamentations with more prolixity than barely by saying, they were grievous, and seemed to have some mixture of the Irish howl in them. Nay, he carried his fondness even to inanimate objects, of which we have above set down a pregnant example in his demonstration of love and tenderness towards his boats and ship. He spoke of a ship which he had commanded formerly, and which was long since no more, which he had called the Princess of Brazil, as a widower of a deceased wife. This ship, after having followed the honest business of carrying goods and passengers for hire many years, did at last take to evil courses and turn privateer, in which service, to use his own words, she received many dreadful wounds, which he himself had felt, as if they had been his own.

3.

Good Breeding in the first half of the Eighteenth Century.

Now, in order to descend minutely into any rules for good-breeding, it will be necessary to lay some scene, or to throw our disciple into some particular circumstance. We will begin them with a visit in the country; and as the principal actor on this occasion is the person who receives it, we will, as briefly as possible, lay down some general rules for his conduct; marking, at the same time, the principal deviations we have observed on these occasions.

When an expected guest arrives to dinner at your house, if your equal, or indeed, not greatly your inferior, he should be sure to find your family in some order, and yourself dressed and ready to receive him at your gate with a smiling countenance. This infuses an immediate cheerfulness into your guest, and persuades him of your esteem and desire of his company. Not so is the behaviour of Polyspherchon, at whose gate you are obliged to knock a considerable time

before you gain admittance. At length, the door being opened to you by a maid or some improper servant, who wonders where the devil all the men are; and being asked if the gentleman is at home, answers, she believes so; you are conducted into a hall, or back-parlour, where you stay some time, before the gentleman, in a dishabille from his study or his garden, waits upon you, asks pardon, and assures you he did not expect you so soon.

Your guest being introduced into a drawing-room, is, after the first ceremonies, to be asked, whether he will refresh himself after his journey, before dinner (for which he is never to stay longer than the usual or fixed hour). But this request is never to be repeated oftener than twice, and not in imitation of Calepus, who, as if hired by a physician, crams wine in a morning down the throats of his most temperate friends, their constitutions being not so dear to them as their present quiet.

When dinner is on the table, and the ladies have taken their places, the gentlemen are to be introduced into the eating-room, where they are to be seated with as much seeming indifference as possible, unless there be any present whose degrees claim an undoubted precedence. As to the rest, the general rules of precedence are by marriage, age, and profession. Lastly, in placing your guests, regard is rather to be had to birth than fortune; for though pursepride is forward enough to exalt itself, it bears a degradation with more secret comfort and ease than the former, as being more inwardly satisfied with itself, and less apprehensive of neglect or contempt.

The order in helping your guests is to be regulated by that of placing them; but here I must, with great submission, recommend to the lady at the upper end of the table, to distribute her favours as equally and as impartially

as she can. I have sometimes seen a large dish of fish extend no farther than to the fifth person, and a haunch of venison lose all its fat before half the table had tasted it.

A single request to eat of any particular dish, how elegant soever, is the utmost I allow. I strictly prohibit all earnest solicitations, all complaints that you have no appetite, which are sometimes little less than burlesque, and always impertinent and troublesome.

And here, however low it may appear to some readers, as I have known omissions of this kind give offence, and sometimes make the offenders, who have been very well-meaning persons, ridiculous, I cannot help mentioning the ceremonial of drinking healths at table, which is always to begin with the lady's and next the master's of the house.

When dinner is ended, and the ladies retired, though I do not hold the master of the feast obliged to fuddle himself through complacence (and, indeed, it is his own fault generally, if his company be such as would desire it) yet he is to see that the bottle circulate sufficient to afford every person present a moderate quantity of wine, if he chooses it; at the same time permitting those who desire it, either to pass the bottle, or fill their glass as they please. Indeed, the beastly custom of besotting, and ostentatious contention for preeminence in their cups, seems at present pretty well abolished among the better sort of people.

XXXV.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

1709-1784.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, born 1709, died 1784. He was the chief literary man of his time; he wrote poems, moral and controversial essays, and biographies. He also composed his celebrated English Dictionary. His principal works are two satires, London, and the Vanity of Human Wishes; moral essays, published in the Rambler and the Idler; Rasselas, and Lives of the Poets. He is, however, best known through his Life by Boswell.

It has been said of Johnson, that while the lives of other authors were known because of their writings, his writings are known because of his life. That this is so, is due in part to his having found in Boswell an incomparable biographer. It is due also to the fact that Johnson occupied a peculiar position. In his time the world of literature was a comparatively small world, the members of which were familiar with each other, and marked off from the rest of society as a distinct class. Over this world Johnson ruled as undisputed king. He held his position mainly by his unparalleled powers of conversation, but he was also, from the fame of his writings, the acknowledged head of the literary profession.

His satires, his controversial works, his moral essays, and even his dictionary, were among the most popular works of their day, and were considered no less remarkable for beauty of style than for vigour of thought. The verdict of posterity has not altogether ratified the judgment of Johnson's contemporaries. His

style, which was the source of his popularity, in the 18th century, injures his reputation with modern readers. His settled pre

ference for words derived from Latin sources is opposed to modern taste, and frequently gives to his sentences an air of cumbrous pedantry. Moreover, his thoughts, are more remarkable for their vigorous good sense than for their originality or profoundness. As a critic, he displays far more acuteness than subtlety, and rarely criticises with effect any writers but those who, like Pope, belong to his own school of sentiment. Yet, on the whole, his Lives of the Poets are the best of his works. They are written in a style which is dignified without being pedantic, and contain many reflections well deserving attention. It is, in fact, Johnson's great merit, that he never wrote unless he had something to say, and that he could always express exactly what he meant to say in precise language. Few writers who have filled as many volumes, have written as little that was not worth writing as Johnson.

1. The Happy Valley.

THE place, which the wisdom, or policy, of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abissinan princes, was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded, on every side, by mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage, by which it could be entered, was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has been long disputed, whether it was the work of nature, or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth, which opened into the valley, was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massy, that no man could, without the help of engines, open or shut them.