such a colloquial character as Doctor Franklin ! Never have I known such a fire-side companion as he was!Great as he was both as a statesman and a philosopher, he never shone in a light more winning than when he was seen in a domestic circle. It was once my good fortune to pass two or three weeks with him at the house of a private gentleman, in the back part of Pennsylvania; and we were confined to the house during the whole of that time by the unintermitting constancy and depth of the snows. But confinement could never be felt where Franklin was an inmate. His cheerfulness and his colloquial powers spread around him a perpetual spring.-When I speak however of his colloquial powers, I do not mean to awaken any notion analagous to that which Boswell has given us when he so frequently mentions the colloquial powers of Doctor Johnson. The conversation of the latter continually reminds one of "the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war." It was, indeed, a perpetual contest for victory- or an arbitrary and despotic exaction of homage to his superior talents. It was strong-acuteprompt—splendid and vociferous:—as loud, stormy and Sublime as those winds which he represents as shaking the Hebrides and rocking the old castles that frowned upon the dark rolling sea beneath. But one gets tired of storms, however sublime they may be; and longs for the more orderly current of nature. Of Franklin no one ever became tired.—There was no ambition of eloquence, no effort to shine in any thing which came from him. There was nothing which made any demand either upon your allegiance or your admiration.

His manner was as unaffected as infancy. It was nature's self. He talked like an old patriarch; and his plainness and simplicity put you, at once, at your ease, and gave you the full and free possession and use of all your faculties.

How few men of talents are there who cultivate this primeval simplicity, this happiest of manners! There are few, indeed, who dare to adopt it. It is only the genuine diamond which shews to the highest advantage, when plainly set. Stones of an inferior worth are forced to compensate for their intrinsic meanness, by the glittering margin which surrounds them. Look through the country, and you will invariably find that those who are most distinguished for strength of mind are ever the men of plainest style and manners. So true is this, that if you hear a man in conversation tambouring and bespangling his periods with uncommon pains, you may, in general, be sure that that man is comparatively flimzy in the essentials of

intellect. How different was Dr. Franklin! His thoughts were of a character to shine by their own light without any adventitious aid. They required only a medium of vision like his pure and simple style, to exhibit, to the highest advantage, their native radiance and beauty. His cheerfulness was unremitting. It seemed to be as much the effect of the systematic and salutary exercise of the mind as of its superior organization. His wit was of the first order.

It did not show itself merely in occasional corruscations; but without any force or effort on his part, it shed a constant stream of the finest light, over the whole of his disCourse. Whether in the company of commons or nobles, he was always the same plain man; always most perfect ly at his ease, his faculties in full play, and the vast orbit of his genius, forever clear and unclouded. And then the stores of his mind were inexhaustible. He had commenced life with an attention so vigilant, that nothing escaped his observation and a judgment so solid, that every incident was turned to advantage. His youth had not been wasted in idleness; nor overcast by intemperance. He had been all his life a close and deep reader, as well as thinker; and by the force of his own powers had wrought up the raw materials which he had gathered from books with such exquisite skill and felicity, that he had added an hundred fold to their original value, and justly made them his own.

Such was the man whom I would hold up to your youth, as a model of colloquial excellence. And to all young men, whose taste has not been depraved by the Vicious examples of the age, the appeal may be successfully made. Such will always prefer the strong and sterling worth of that intellect, whose constant propensity and aim it was, to turn the mind "from sound to sense; from fancy to the heart.'

Alas! where will you find a substitute for the quiet, cheerful, solid and instructive conversation of Doctor Franklin among the talkers of the present day? Will you find it in the eternal and incessant clack of a fashionable circle-where the order of the day, is to "dash on, keep moving"where the circle seems to shudder at the apprehension of a moment's pause, and to abhor a vacuum in the colloquial, more than nature is supposed to do, in the material world? Or will you find that substitute in the conceited and repulsive declamation, the tumid and buskin'd rant or sneering invective of Spumoso; in the pretty, sentimental, clinquant prattle of Alithos in the glittering gew-gaws and sparkling froth of Adonis; in the

stiff, unwieldy and aukward attempts of Taurus at spor tiveness; or even in the brilliant, but too ambitious wit of Atticus. Alas! these are but poor substitutes for the fine and tried gold of Franklin's conversation.

The defect in manners which most frequently offends me, is the want of nature. One would suppose that we had mistaken the sarcastic sneer of the English Poet, for a grave and earnest precept of conduct, since we proclaim by our actions, that "nature must give way to art.". In these days of modern refinement and illumination, we have become à set of artificial and made-up characters: compounded of affectations and imitations-borrowing an ogle from one-a step from another-an attitude from a third-a gesture from a fourth-a mincing pronunciation from a fifth-a favorite phrase from a sixth-a tone and modulation of voice from a seventh, &c. &c. and are thus the poor creatures of borrowed shreds and patches. The artless simplicity and innocence of nature are gone! Every thing now is preconcert and design. Our killing attitudes have all the guilt of premeditation. Our looks of delight, and even of distress, are studied.-Our airs of state exhibit the strutting ostentation of a German baron, stiff with gold, and haughtiness, instead of the enchanting ease and grace of genuine dignity. Our vivacity is all precipitation and unthinking flutter; instead of that native gaiety of heart which charms so much when sporting in its natural gait and escorted by the mind. Our wit is continually under the spur, and seeks and even forces the occasion, instead of waiting for and rising naturally out of it. We are perpetually striving to appear to feel what we do not, and to seem to be what we are not. With this view we practise ten thousand antics and grimaces of look and gesture, by which we mutually disgust while we are trying to cheat each other. Why has Musidora, whether she is holding a circle of beaus, in chat or warbling to her, piano, so much of that tortuous and excessively gracefulaction of the head, arms and body? One censorious byestander will whisper, that it is all necessary to keep her awake or at least from relapsing into her constitutional torpor and lethargy: another will say, that it is to give the. enkindling idea of irrepressible animation and over-flowing extacy. In truth, Musidora is unpardonable for putting this force upon herself: I can, indeed, forgive her excessive desire to please; for notwithstanding that there is something of a selfish scheme of conquest in the case, there is, at least, an implied compliment to the gentlemen which is obliging: but she does herelf great injustice in supposing it necessary to her views to strain her spirits to

an unusual or unnatural pitch.-Were she to obey only the impulse of nature, her sensibility would display itself in a much more touching manner by the trembling tones of her voice, the alternate rose and lily on her cheek, the smile and tear in her eye, and those gentle movements of the figure which her heart would prompt, and which no one would mistake. Without effort, Musidora has life and feeling enough to warm even the winter of age. Under all the disadvantages of an affected manner, she is still a sweet girl: and were she under the guidance of nature only, she would be irresistible."

Look now at the smiling animation of Sir Fopling Flutter: Look at the sparkling lustre of his fine dark eyes, and then their languishing roll and "dying, dying fall!" How distressing it is to the retiring modesty of his disposition,, to be forced to take so conspicuous a stand, where the eyes of all the belles and all the assembly are, of necessity, cast upon him every twenty minutes! How gracefully negligent his attitudes and the management of his gold headed ratan! See again, with what quick and electric vivacity he looks towards the music, and what a sudden gleam of silly rapture overspreads his fine face!—To be sure, there was nothing in that particular passage to excite such a feeling in truth, it was rather flat than otherwise; and even if it had been ever so fine, Sir Foppling has no more ear than a Satyr. But we are supposed not to know all this; and his hope is that we shall give him credit for Æolian nerves, and all the taste as well as the grace and beauty of Apollo.

How do those ridiculous and odious affectations defeat their own purpose, and offend and disgust, instead of pleasing us! Men and women of sense dispise them. They know that a natural manner is, in society, what naivete is in literary composition-That it gives the finest scope for superior parts; exhibits them to the very best advantage, and commands the respect while it conciliates the love of the beholder. Who, for instance, would exchange the sweet simplicity and ease of Montaigne or Sterne, for the stiff affectation and elaborate pomp of Shaftesbury? Or, who would exchange the vital grace and sweet enchantment of my Rosalie's natural manner, for all the arts and ambuscades of the most practised coquette? Is there not as much difference between them, as there is between that unchanging and unmeaning blush. which is borrowed from art, and that

"beauty truly blent, whose red and white, Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.”

Besides; unless we abandon these fashionable affectations and imitations, and return to nature, we shall lose all that charming variety of character which nature has so happily designed. Why should we thus continue to spoil Nature's works? Would we, if we could, blot out the finely diversified landscape, composed of hills and vales and fields and woods and water, and substitute in their place, the flat monotony of a bowling green, howeter finely rolled or richly turfed? And if not, why should we spoil the still more enchanting varieties of the animated world?

Let us return to the walks of pure and simple Nature. That benignant divinity will give us a fair and stable basis on which we may safely erect the grandest moral and literary structures. Under her tutelage no virtuous and intelligent character yet failed to please-and that, not for a day nor a year, like the transient empire of affecta tion and trick:—BUT FOR LIFE.

Rumber XVIII

Quid rides! Mutato nomine, de te

Fabula narratur.

Hor. Sat. 1. Lib. İ.

Wherefore do you laugh?

Change but the name, of thee, the tale is told.

I have received several very angry letters from persons whom I never saw, or, even, heard of, before, complaining, already, of having been personally attacked in the numbers of The Old Bachelor-In some of these letters, I am asked how can I reconcile it with my profession of benevolence to inflict so much pain, so unnecessarily and wantonly, In others I am asked whether it becomes the character of a soldier of the revolution which I have assumed, to seek the shelter of a fictitious signature for the purpose of scattering insults through the world. In others I am asked whether it becomes the character of a man or a gentleman, to disturb, by his itch for writing, the peace and harmony of society, and above all to offer an affront to that sex whom he was formed to defend.

My first impulse, on reading these letters, was to throw