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SIR,

THE paper in your laft mifcellany has given birth to the following reflections, fo do not difdain them. While you are leafnedly commenting on the ftyle of writing, give me leave, Sir, to throw in a word or two on a matter of more immediate confequence to the comfort and happinefs of life; the ftyle of converfation. I do not mean the rounding of fentences, or faying pretty things prettily, or fine things finely, or backing your horfes, like Mrs. Flourigig, in the midft of a fpeech, for the fake of turning the corner of a period; but the downright communication of our thoughts to each other, the life and foul of all focial intercourfe, the first purpose of meeting and company, and the great diftinction between our fpecies and the reft of the animal creation.

"Speak, that I may know thee," faid the wife man of old; but according to the prefcribed ufe of fpeech in polite company, it is impoffible for us to come at the leaft knowledge of each other; not on account of our ufing fpeech for the purpofe of diffimulation, but because it is ungenteel, forfooth, to difcover in company that you have any knowledge at all; or for any one perfon to fpeak above five feconds at a time, or above five words in a breath.

Tedioufnefs and profing in converfation is an abominable practice, I allow; but no man ever dealt half fo difagreeably in that figure of rhetoric,

which, I think, Swift calls the Circumbendibus, as the fops and flirts of the prefent age now dea: in the abrupt, fnip-fnap manner of abandoning a fubject before three fyllables have been faid upon it; flying from one queftion to another, as if each had been started for the fake of quitting it immediately, or as if the very ghost of good fenfe was to be laid in all good company. Converfation was intended as a kind of traffic of mental commodities, but nobody now dare open their budget: and left nature fhould fet some tongues a-going, the puppies of the world have, from time to time, contrived to put a kind of gag in our mouths, by inventing certain terms calculated to turn every man to ridicule who will venture to deliver his fentiments, or difclofe his mind, for the information or entertainment of the company. If you attempt to tell a flory, one puppy puts his hand to his cheek, and cries Hem! implying, it feems, that the tale is falfe, or that it fmells of Joe Miller; and if you continue your narration a minute and a half, another puppy turns to a monkey next him, and whifpers "what a bore! or boar!" for I do not know how they fpell their nonfenfe; but (take it which way you will) it is intended to convey an idea of tedioufnefs, and to compare the fpeaker to a hog or a gimlet: but fure, Sir, fuch wretches are themfelves the greatest enemies' to good

company;

company; mere dampers to the mind, wet blankets to the imagination, and extinguishers of good fenfe and good humour. Taciturnity is the great vice of Englishmen, and it would be more expedient to devife methods to prevail on them to throw off that referve which freezes their converfation, than to study these poor meagre inventions to fhut up every man's light, like a dark lanthorn, within his own bofom. A bold free fpirit, it is true, will leap thefe fences; but it is hard, inethinks, that a plain modeft man fhould be flopped in the high road of converfation, and not fuffered to go on without interruption.

I love humour and pleafantry, Sir, as well as the merrieft man in the kingdom; but, give me leave to inform thefe fine gentlemen, that it is a melancholy fymptom, when they cannot bear the ferious purfuit of any fubject for two minutes together. Humour itfelf, if good for any thing, is ferious at the bottom; but what provokes me, is, that thefe cuckows are as grave as ftoics, and hold it a kind of treafon to laugh; for the old folly is revived, which almoft began to grow obfolete in our ancient comedies, of being gentleman-like and melancholy. Converfation being a kind of fhort extempore compofition, all fevere cenfure of what falls from us, prophanenefs and indecency excepted, is ridiculous: not only fenfe, but, for the fake of fenfe, even nonfenfe, fhould be tolerated; for a man who is always afraid of uttering what may be interpreted to be nonfenfe, will not give his understanding fair play; and he will often let the immediate occafion, that would have given grace and force to his obfervations, pafs by. He will feem, like an aukward militia-man, difcharging his folitary blunderbufs long after the reft of the corps; or at beft, fuppofing his words to have real weight and fterling value, they will come upon us untowardly, like diftant thunder, which does not reach our cars till long after the flash has taught us to expect it.

By attending and obferving modern converfation, one would be tempted LOND. MAG. May 1784.

to imagine that it was one of the first principles of politenefs to drive all fentiment and science out of fociety. Every thing relative to a man's peculiar concerns, in which he might fuppofe his friends and acquaintance to take fome little intereft, is deemed impertinent; and every thing relative to knowledge is deemed pedantic. Formerly the honeft bottle forced fome rational and fpirited conversation, even from the moft riotous company; but the milk fops of our age keep themfelves fober, till the cards or dice relieve them from the cruel neceffity of endeavouring to amufe each other by converfation. In the mean time, to put a curb on the fancy, left the little genius they have fhould grow reftive, and run away with them, they devife thefe miferable mechanical pieces of ridicule, as reftraints on the freedom of fociety. I am rather an old fellow, perhaps fomewhat peevish, and I confefs it often puts me quite out of pa tience: when a man cries Hem! at one of my ftories, I am almoft provoked to give him a flap on the face; and when a puppy feems to measure my words with a ftop watch, and at the end of a few feconds cries, Bore! I am almost ready to call him out, and run him through the body for his rudeness and impertinence.

We have loft the noble art of antiquity of writing elegant compofitions in the form of dialogue. No wonder: for what dialogue can appear natural, when fuppofed to proceed from the mouths of men who will difcourfe on no fubject, who preclude all pleafanz tries as vulgar, and fupercede all knowlege as pedantic. As to fentiment, it might find as much quarter in a modern comedy from a modern critic, as from our puny eftablishers of the laws of converfation. The heart and the head are equally unconcerned, and to feem to know any thing, or to feel any thing, are alike breaches of politenefs. But furely, Sir, all this is directly oppofite to the warmth and plainness of our old national character: we were wont, like Shak fpeare's Claudio, to fpeak home and to the purpose. If a man's mind is full of ideas, why not 3 A

let

let them run over, and water the barren understandings, or refresh the fruitful wits of the company? Befides that, a man himself scarce knows what ftuff he has in his thoughts, till he has drawn them out into difcourfe, and often forms his own opinion according to the impreffion that his words feem to make on his hearers. Anfwers too are produced, frequently given with more fhrewdnefs on the fpot than on further confideration; and truth, as well as wit, is ftruck out by collifion. I don't mean to turn every fociety into a tinder-box, and to fet argument and repartee, like flint and steel, perpetually ftriking against each other; yet, if a fpark is now and then lighted up, why fhould the officious hand of dullnefs be authorized, by supposed politeness, to extinguifh it? Converfation is mentioned by Lord Bacon (as wife a man, Sir, as the wifeft of our macaronies) among the chief benefits of friendship, making day-light in the understanding, out of darkness and confufion of thoughts;" and as the paper on ftyle was adorned with an extract from a learned modern, give me leave to wind up the bottom of my loofe thoughts on Converfation with a paffage transcribed from that great chancellor and philofopher.

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"Whoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarifie and break up in the communicating and difcourfing with another; he toffeth his thoughts more eafily, he marthalleth them more orderly, he feeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wifer than himself, and that more by an hour's difcourfe, than by a day's meditation. It was well faid by Themistocles to the King of Perfia,

That Speech was like cloth of arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure, whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this fruit of friendship, of opening the underftanding, reftrained only to fuch friends as are able to give a man counfel; (they indeed are beft) but even without that a man learneth of himfelf, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a ftone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himfelf to a ftatue or picture, than to fuffer his thoughts to pass in smother."

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"Conference, fays Lord Coke also, is the life of ftudy." Conference, fays Lord Bacon again, makes a ready man, and if he confer little, he had need have a prefent wit."-In fhort, Sir, converfation is the great fource of pleasure and information in fociety, and whoever contributes to dam it up fhould be ftrenuously oppofed by the reft of mankind. But to fuffer a bye word, a low cant term, to deprive us of the means of entertainment and intelligence is the meaneft pufillanimity, and facrificing good fenfe at the fhrine of folly and nonfenfe.

I muft beg leave, therefore, by an index expurgatorius, to expunge Hem, without a perfon really wants to clear his throat, and Bore, from the modem vocabulary; not merely on account of the barbarity of the terms, but for the evil tendency of the ridiculous fomething, or lefs than nothing, implied by them; for they are not only framed by blockheads deftitute of meaning in themfelves, but calculated to kill the feeds of good fenfe and humanity in other people.

I am, Sir, your's, &c.

R. L

Tintrude upon the mind on all ocHERE are certain cares which cafions and in all places; nor can we

things

things which have no relation to themfelves. Have we aught to do which remains undone, or have ills of any kind befallen thofe whom we fincerely regard: our own condition, or that of our friends, will be a fubject from which our thoughts cannot, for a long time be wholly abftracted.

We are not to be surprised, therefore, nor ought we to be offended, if by thofe who are under thefe or fimilar circumstances a becoming obfervance of time, place, and perfon fhould, without intention, be often neglected.

In thefe cafes the infcientia temporis may admit of excufe: but the wilful difregard of that particular decorum which the prefent occafion may demand furely deferves fevere reprehen fion; and especially as the practice of it daily becomes more and more frequent.

This inattention to the place in which, and to the perfons with whom we are, and to the occafion on which we are met, is called, whether it be with or without caufe, whether with or without intention, abfence; the chief difcrimination in company, as it is now a-days thought, between men of fuperior intellectual ftrength, and thofe who poffefs only common underftanding.

No doubt they who have the moft knowledge have the greateft employment for their thoughts, and certainly do think the most: moreover, in thofe who have been accustomed, during the whole of their lives, to fpend much of their time in the penfive occupation of folitary ftudy, and have delighted more in books than in men, the habit of thought may be fo powerful, that they may fcarcely ever be long and thoroughly free from it; and, therefore, cannot but have in company frequent though inconscious relapfes into the absent state.

And, because in this manner fome men of learning and genius have been obferved to behave, a conclufion has been made, that the behaviour of every

one of fuperior parts must be the fame; and, therefore, that by this we should at all times be enabled to distinguish in company those who have knowledge from thofe who have none. The error, however, of this conclufion will fhortly appear; for now there is hardly a man who wishes to be confidered in any wife learned that does not affect to be frequently abfent.

If men confeffedly great have ever, and it is to be fufpected that they fometimes have, been guilty of the affectation of abfence, fuch their conduct could only proceed from a notion, which muft excite contempt for those by whom it is held, that common converfation has nothing in it worthy their notice, and, therefore, that it would not become them to be attentive to it.

Certainly in this they are fadly deceived; and fuch a mistake cannot but prove, that the greatest weakness will fometimes be fhown by those who are efteemed the wifeft of men*.

That philofophy, however, which is of a more genuine kind, which has a confideration for others as well as for felf, thinks and acts in a different manner; at all times adapts itfelf to the fociety in which it may be; and to the mereft trifles, provided the pleafure of others can be promoted thereby, readily gives the most patient attention.

When men in genius or in knowledge greater than others are inattentive to the company at which they are prefent, they furely forget the end of their vifit; they forget that we retire to the clofet for meditation and study; but that we come into fociety for relaxation and amufement: to be abfent, therefore, on thefe occafions is, as it were, to fall into flumbers when we fhould keep awake: it is committing a rudeness which finks us at once to the barbarian level: it is giving an offence which cannot but fometimes be of hurt to thofe from whom it proceeds, and which all but the defipient or infane would wish to avoid, 3 A 2

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