-sided, and he began to reflect that they were all his own clan, descended from the younger brothers and bastards of the family, he could not find in his heart to turn any of them out of their farms.

"My cousin was equally industrious, and as unsuccessful, in his schemes for cultivating the moors. For when he had, by long thought and study, formed one of the most beautiful plans in the world for that purpose, he never could find any person who would execute any part of it.

"But still the planting of the hills promised every thing. By long and laborious investigations he found, that they would admit ten millions of trees, and that those trees, when forty years old, would be worth ten millions sterling, which would make him the richest subject in Europe. Transported with joy at this prospect, he determined to lose no time. He actually collected ten bushels of beech-mast, and an equal quantity of acorns, and wanted nothing but a proper place for a nursery, to begin his operations; but staying abroad too late, one evening in April, in search of such a place, he got a violent cold, which threw him into a fever, of which he died, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, in the same tattered bed and ruinous castle in which he was born; his debts unpaid, his morass undrained, his farms unimproved, his moors uncultivated, and his hills unplanted.

"With a heavy heart, I attended the precious remains of my dear cousin to his grave, and saw a stone laid upon it with this inscription:

Hic jacet

Illustrissimus Dominus Thomas Lounger,
de Loiterhall, Baronettus.

Dum vixit,

Multa proposuit,
Nihil perfecit,
Secundùm morem
Loungeriorum.'

"I am, &c.

L. L."

No. 12. SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1785.

Hippocrates in his Chapter of Hats.

MOCK DOCTOR.

IT has often been remarked, that men are apt to display more of their real character in circumstances apparently slight and unimportant, than in the greater and more momentous actions of life. Our behaviour, or even the remark we may drop upon some seemingly trifling occurrence, will often strongly denote the real complexion of our mind: and it is upon this account that we admire so much the happy talents of those writers who, by a well-chosen circumstance, contrive at once to paint and make us acquainted with the character of the persons whom they wish to describe.

pur

The great passions which actuate men in the suits of life, present little diversity of features to afford any just discrimination of character. Besides, in conducting the pursuits to which these passions incite, men are taught to be upon their guard: they are restrained by the customs and opinions of the world, and, under a kind of disguise, are constantly acting an artificial part. But in the more trifling circumstances of manner and behaviour, and in the more ordinary occurrences of life, which tend to no particular object, and in which therefore men are less upon their guard, the disguise is forgot to be assumed, and we give way to the natural cast of our mind and disposition. It is there we are apt to

betray those peculiar features of character, and those often nice shades of distinction, that difference and discriminate us from one another.

I have often amused myself with thinking, that, even in what may be deemed very slight circumstances of outward deportment and manner, I could distinctly trace something of the peculiar character of the man. There are particulars in our ordinary demeanour and appearance which are more connected with our turn of mind than we are apt to suspect, and more especially when they are such as from constant and daily repetition necessarily become familiar to us. I remember that a friend of mine, who was a great observer of those smaller traits which escaped others, assured me, that in the circle of his acquaintance he could, in the pace and manner of walking of each, mark out something which indicated its arising from the particular temper and disposition of the man. Nay, even where the manner of walking was the result, not of nature, but of affectation, he used to say, he could thence also discover the character; and that, independent of the meanness of affectation in so frivolous a circumstance, we might be certain that the affected pace was assumed to give the appearance of some quality which the person wished to possess, and knew himself to want. 'La gravité,' says Rochefoucault, 'est un mystere du corps, inventé pour cacher les 'defauts de l'esprit.' In confirmation of this, I remember that I once knew a Noble Lord who affected on all occasions a very slow and solemn pace, walking even across the room, or from one room to another, with all the leisurely solemnity of an usher at a funeral; but no one had sat at table with his Lordship for a single hour, without being sufficiently convinced from his coarse jokes and horse-laugh, that real dignity was no feature of his mind, and that he wished

to supply the want, by what he fancied a very dignified gait and manner of walking.

I happened, not long since, to be at an electiondinner, where, as is usually the case, the company was very numerous, very noisy, and very dull. In taking our places at table, I chanced, unfortunately, to be separated from some friends whom I had wished to sit by; and finding none near me from whose conversation I could derive much entertainment, I was left to amuse myself with my own reflections on the crowd, and noise, and confusion which surrounded me. I happened at last to cast my eyes upon the opposite side of the room, where I perceived that every one seated in that row had hung up his hat on the wall behind him. Upon surveying these hats, and remarking that each had something particular, which, to an attentive observer, distinguished it from its neighbour, I began next to indulge my imagination, in fitting the hat to the head of its owner, and in trying if the distinguishing figure of each hat did not correspond with something in the manner and character of the person to whom it appertained.

From the military hat and the navy hat, I could learn nothing; these, like their owners, being too much under regulation and discipline to admit of any diversity. It was amongst the other hats only that I could expect a field for observation. The first which attracted my attention was a new and glossy hat, made up and cocked in the very extremity of the fashion. Had it been graced with a cockade, I should have proceeded to the next; but wanting that, I looked below to find out the owner, and soon discovered that it could belong to none but a young barrister, who is less studious of his brief than of being thought a man of fashion, above the pedantry of his profession, and I think is very likely

to attain his wish. verse of the former. It was of a form and cock that has been out of date these ten years, and yet withal it seemed new. Close below it, I discerned the careful owner, who, for fear of accidents, had cautiously placed himself near. He is rich and penurious; and by the most wretched saving has amasséd a fortune. Contiguous to these hung a hat which appeared to have suffered more by negligence than by age. It seemed to have been intended to be moderately fashionable; but from the inattention of its owner, had its air and form a good deal impaired. It was the property of a learned pilosopher, who sat not far distant, and who is too much absorbed in abstract speculation, to give attention to circumstances of dress. Not far distant hung a hat seemingly fresh and new, excepting in its front angle, where the cock was so squeezed, compressed, and crumpled, as sufficiently to denote its very familiar acquaintance with the hand of its owner. I had no difficulty in appropriating it. Its master is the most complaisant man in town, knows every body, is constantly in the street, and in places of public resort, and bows with the most respectful attention to every one he meets. Near this last was a hat which for some time puzzled me what to make of it. It was neither new nor old; it was neither * much in nor much out of the fashion; and seemed to be a strange mixture between the old fashion and the new, with a kind of studied endeavour to be most of the latter. After some time, I believe I hit upon its owner. He is a gentleman who wishes to be of the fashion as far as his affection to his money, which is the stonger principle with him, will permit; and his whole life is a warfare between his vanity and his avarice.

The next hat was just the re

On the next peg was stuck a round riding-hat,