William, "do you think my uncle takes any notice of fuch a dull rogue as you are?" Mr. William goes on: "He is the most stupid of all my mother's children he knows nothing of his book; when he should mind that, he is hiding or hoarding his taws and marbles, or laying up farthings. His way of thinking is, four and twenty farthings make fixpence, and two fixpences a fhilling, two fhillings and fixpence half a crown, and two half crowns five fhillings. So within these two months the close hunks has fcraped up twenty fhillings, and we'll make him spend it all before he comes home." Jack immediately claps his hands into both pockets and turns as pale as ashes. There is nothing touches a parent (and fuch I am to Jack) fo nearly as a provident conduct, This lad has in him the true temper for a good husband, a kind father, and an honest executor. All the great people you fee make confiderable figures on the 'Change, in court, and fometimes in fenates, are fuch as in reality have no greater faculty than what may be called human instinct, which is a natural tendency to their own preservation and that of their friends, without being capable of ftriking out of the road for adventures. There's Sir William Scrip was of this fort of capacity from his childhood; he has bought the country round him, and makes a bargain better than Sir Harry Wildfire, with all his wit and humour. Sir Harry never wants money but he comes to Scrip, laughs at him half an hour, and then gives bond for t'other thousand. The close men are incapable of placing merit anywhere but in their pence, and therefore gain it; while others, who have larger capacities, are diverted from the purfuit by enjoyments which can be supported only by that cash which they despise, and therefore are in the end flaves to their inferiors both in fortune and understanding. I once heard a man of excellent sense observe that more affairs in the world failed by being in the hands of men of too large capacities for their business than by being in the conduct of fuch as wanted abilities to execute them. Jack, therefore, being of a plodding make, shall be a citizen; and I defign him to be the refuge of the family in their distress, as well as their jeft in profperity. His brother Will, fhall go to Oxford with all speed, where, if he does not arrive at being a man of fenfe, he will foon be informed

wherein he is a coxcomb. There is in that place fuch a true fpirit of raillery and humour, that if they can't make you a wife man, they will certainly let you know you are a fool, which is all my coufin wants to cease to be fo. Thus having taken these two out of the way, I have leisure to look at my third lad. I obferve in the young rogue a natural subtlety of mind, which discovers itself rather in forbearing to declare his thoughts on any occafion than in any visible way of exerting himself in difcourfe; for which reafon I will place him where, if he commits no faults, he may go farther than those in other stations, though they excel in virtues. The boy is well fashioned, and will eafily fall into a graceful manner, wherefore I have a defign to make him a page to a great lady of my acquaintance, by which means he will be well skilled in the common modes of life, and make a greater progress in the world by that knowledge than with the greatest qualities without it. A good mien in a court will carry a man greater lengths than a good understanding in any other place. We fee a world of pains taken, and the best years of life spent in collecting a fet of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life, and after all the man fo qualified shall hesitate in his speech to a good fuit of clothes, and want common sense before an agreeable woman. Hence it is that wisdom, valour, justice, and learning can't keep a man in countenance that is possessed with thefe excellencies, if he wants that inferior art of life and behaviour called good breeding. A man endowed with great perfections without this, is like one who has his pockets full of gold but always wants change for his ordinary occafions.

Will. Courtly is a living inftance of this truth, and has had the fame education which I am giving my nephew. He never spoke a thing but what was said before, and yet can converse with the wittiest men without being ridiculous. Among the learned he does not appeår ignorant; nor with the wife, indifcreet. Living in converfation from his infancy, makes him no where at a loss; and a long familiarity with the persons of men, is in a manner of the fame fervice to him as if he knew their arts. As ceremony is the invention of wife men to keep fools at a distance, fo good breeding is an expedient to make fools and wife men equals.

CHAPTER XXXII.

ENTERTAINS HIS THREE NEPHEWS AND A LADY.

H

PAVING yesterday morning received a paper of Latin verfes, written with very much elegance in honour of these my papers, and being informed at the fame time that they were compofed by a youth under age, I read them with much delight, as an instance of his improvement. There is not a greater pleasure to old age than feeing young people entertain themfelves in fuch a manner, as that we can partake of their enjoyments. On fuch occafions, we flatter ourselves that we are not quite laid afide in the world, but that we are either used with gratitude for what we were, or honoured for what we are. A well-inclined young man, and whofe good breeding is founded upon the principles of nature and virtue, must needs take delight in being agreeable to his elders, as we are truly delighted when we are not the jest of them. When I say this, I must confefs I cannot but think it a very lamentable thing that there fhould be a neceffity for making that a rule of life, which should be, methinks, a mere inftinct of nature. If reflection upon a man in poverty, whom we once knew in riches, is an argument of commiferation with generous minds, fure old age, which is a decay from that vigour which the young possess, and must certainly (if not prevented against their will) arrive at, fhould be more forcibly the object of that reverence which honest spirits are inclined to from a sense of being themselves liable to what they obferve has already overtaken others.

My three nephews, whom in June laft was twelvemonth, I difpofed of according to their feveral capacities and inclinations; the first to the university, the fecond to a merchant, and the third to a woman of quality as her page, by my invitation dined with me to-day. It is my custom often, when I have a mind to give myself a more than ordinary cheerfulness, to invite a certain young gentlewoman of our neighbourhood to make one of the company. She did me that favour this day. The presence of a beautiful woman of honour, to minds which are not trivially difpofed, difplays an alacrity which is not to be communicated by any other object. It was not unpleasant to me to look into her thoughts of the company fhe was in. She fmiled at the party of pleasure I had thought of for her, which was compofed of an old man and three boys. My fcholar, my citizen, and myself, were very foon neglected; and the young courtier, by the bow he made to her at her entrance, engaged her obfervation without a rival. I obferved the Oxonian not a little difcomposed at this preference, while the trader kept his eye upon his uncle. My nephew Will. had a thousand secret refolutions to break in upon the difcourfe of his younger brother, who gave my fair companion a full account of the fashion, and what was reckoned most becoming to this complexion, and what sort of habit appeared best upon the other fhape. He proceeded to acquaint her who of quality was well or fick within the bills of mortality, and named very familiarly all his lady's acquaintance, not forgetting her very words when he spoke of their characters. Befides all this, he had a road of flattery; and upon her inquiring what fort of woman Lady Lovely was in her perfon, "Really, madam," fays the jackanapes, "she is exactly of your height and shape; but as you are fair, fhe is a brown woman." There was no enduring that this fop fhould outshine us all at this unmerciful rate, therefore I thought fit to talk to my young scholar concerning his ftudies; and because I would throw his learning into present service, I defired him to repeat to me the translation he had made of fome tender verfes in Theocritus. He did fo, with an air of elegance peculiar to the college to which I fent him. I made fome exceptions to the turn of the phrases,

which he defended with much modefty, as believing in that place the matter was rather to confult the softness of a swain's paffion, than the strength of his expreffions. It foon appeared that Will. had outstripped his brother in the opinion of our young lady. A little poetry to one who is bred a scholar, has the fame effect that a good carriage of his perfon has on one who is to live in courts. The favour of women is fo natural a paffion, that I envied both the boys their fuccefs in the approbation of my gueft; and I thought the only perfon invulnerable was my young trader. During the whole meal, I could obferve in the children a mutual contempt and fcorn of each other, arifing from their different way of life and education, and took that occafion to advertise them of fuch growing distastes, which might mislead them in their future life, and disappoint their friends, as well as themselves, of the advantages which might be expected from the diversity of their profeffions and interests.

The prejudices which are growing up between these brothers from the different ways of education, are what create. the most fatal misunderstandings in life. But all distinctions of difparagement merely from our circumstances, are such as will not bear the examination of reafon. The courtier, the trader, and the scholar, fhould all have an equal pretenfion to the denomination of a gentleman. That tradesman who deals with me in a commodity which I do not understand, with uprightness, has much more right to that character, than the courtier that gives me falfe hopes, or the scholar who laughs at my ignorance.

The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behaviour in them. For this reafon I shall ever, as far as I am able, give my nephews fuch impreffions as fhall make them value themselves rather as they are useful to others, than as they are confcious of merit in themfelves. There are no qualities from which we ought to pretend to the esteem of others, but fuch as render us ferviceable to them. For free men have no fuperiors but benefactors....