are always the same; but many of the lesser duties of social intercourse receive much of their complexion from the daily fluctuating circumstances of custom and of fashion. But the creed of custom is not always that of right; and it is the privilege of such a work, as well as one of its chief uses, to attack the intrenchments of fashion, whenever she is at war with modesty or virtue.

Of this study of manners the Lounger had early discovered the use and the necessity. He who seldom quits the walk of a particular science or occupation, has a determined object in his view, the pursuit of which leaves little time for scattering attentions around him, and always affords some apology for the neglect of them. But for such neglect the man of no profession cannot so easily be excused, who has neither the hurry of business to occupy his time, nor its embarrassments to distract his thought. It is not, however, by the etiquette of a court, or the ceremonial of a drawingroom, that this virtue is to be regulated. Genuine excellence here, as everywhere else, springs from nature, and is to be cultivated only, not created, by artificial instruction. There is more complacency in the negligence of some men, than in what is called the good-breeding of others; and the little absences of the heart are often more interesting and engaging than the punctilious attention of a thousand professed sacrifices to the graces.

Idleness, or that species of little occupations which is attached to no particular business or profession, is a state more difficult to support than is generally imagined. Even the perfect idler, like some other harmless and insignificant animals whom naturalists are acquainted with, though he can live on air, cannot subsist in vacuo; and the idler of a higher sort

needs perhaps more ideas, more store of mind about him, than would go to the furnishing of twenty brains of mere plodding men of business.

The Lounger feels for the family of the idle in all its branches, however distant their relation to that of which he owns himself descended. To them, therefore, his lucubrations will in a particular manner be adapted. To those in whom the want of active employment has not relaxed the power of thought, they may afford some opportunity for speculation; and even to that prodigal of mind as well as time, who has forgotten how to think, the few moments required for the perusal of them, will be at least a small portion of life harmlessly spent, and, it may be, saved from less innocent employ

ments.

V

No. 3. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1785.

Quid refert quantum habeas? multò illud plus est quod non habes.

SEN.

It is an old and a common observation, that men are more desirous to be thought to possess talents and qualities to which in truth they have no pretensions, than those in which they excel in an eminent degree. Of this Cicero was, in ancient times, a remarkable example; and the observation of every one must have furnished instances as striking in our own days. We see grave and profound statesmen wishing to pass for fine gentlemen, and fine gentlemen valuing themselves upon their knowl

edge of things of which they are most ignorant. If you wish to compliment the gay, the elegant Lothario, you must not mention his taste in dress, his fine figure, or the lively elegance of his conversation; you must dwell upon his knowledge of the interests of the different states of Europe, his extensive political information, and his talents for business. Camillus is a barrister of the first eminence, possessed of great knowledge in his profession, an acute reasoner, and a powerful pleader. In external appearance Nature has been less bountiful to Camillus; his figure is mean and ungraceful; and from his air and manner a stranger would be apt to take him for any thing rather than a gentleman. With all this, Camillus fancies that there is an uncommon degree of elegance in his form, and cannot conceal his ambition to be considered as a man of fashion.

But the most amusing instance of this sort I have met with was that of the late Duke of His Grace was, undoubtedly, possessed of sound judgment, a cultivated understanding, a greater portion of knowledge than usually falls to the share of those of his rank; and though not perhaps calculated to make a brilliant figure in the senate, his talents were admirably adapted for business, and must in any age have entitled their possessor to respect and consideration. Amidst his other studies, the duke had happened to look into some books of physic; from that moment he commenced a most skilful physician, and, compared to himself, considered the whole faculty as a set of ignorant blunderers. An artful courtier, well acquainted with this whimsey of his Grace's, contrived to let it be known, that he was affected with a particular disorder; in the cure of which the duke thought himself more than com

monly expert. He kindly offered his assistance, which was received with becoming gratitude; and from time to time he was acquainted with the progress of the cure, and the effects of the medicine supposed to have been administered in consequence of his prescriptions. At the end of six weeks, the wily patient had to thank his noble physician, both for a complete cure, and a considerable employment which he had long in vain solicited.

Among the other sex, though, from their situation, and the narrow circle of their acquirements, this weakness has less room to display itself, yet it is not unfrequent to be found. Elizabeth might be quoted as a counterpart to Cicero, were it not that the claim to beauty is so natural to a woman, that we do not wonder when we find even a queen not superior to that pretension. But there are, in our own times, ladies who forget the certain empire of their beauty, and aspire to the doubtful reputation of knowledge. Mirtilla has of late turned her fine eyes from terrestrial objects to the study of astronomy; and you cannot flatter her so much as by asking her opinion of the last new meteor, or the Georgium Sidus. And Euanthe, since she read Reaumur, has left her society of beaux for a curious collection of butterflies.

But while people are thus ambitious of being thought to possess talents and qualities to which they have no pretension, it does not thence follow, that they estimate at too low a rate those attainments in which they are allowed to excel. In judging at least of those around us, we are, I am afraid, too apt to undervalue such as may be deficient in any particular in which we have acquired eminence, however respectable such persons may otherwise be. The man of letters looks down with a conscious su

periority on the man of business, engaged in the ordinary affairs of life; the men of the world, on the other hand, feeling the importance of their own occupations, consider the pursuits of literature as at best but a finer species of dissipation, a mere pastime, leading to no end, and attended with no consequence.

This sort of mutual contempt is visible in every rank and condition of life; and even the best, the most moderate, and the most cultivated minds, are not, perhaps, altogether exempted from it. Mr. Hume, in his History of England, expresses himself in the following terms: "Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who obtains but a mediocrity in them, merits the preeminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions." It is not my object at present to inquire how far this opinion be well or ill founded; allowing it to be just, what must Mr. Hume's station be in the scale of excellence? That question, I am persuaded, his gentle modesty hardly permitted him to consider. It is well known that Mr. Hume, a few years before his death, received a pension of 2007. a year. It might have been amusing at the time, to consider the opposite ideas entertained by the givers and the receiver of that pension. In the pride of present power, and amidst the self-importance fostered by perpetual adulation, the minister and his minions might view with a certain degree of contempt a man on whom they were bestowing so paltry a recompense; on the other hand, the author, while receiving this mark of favour, and expressing his gratitude for it, might not be able to check the rising thought, that his name would live forever, ranked with those whose envied lot it had been, to inform, to enlighten, to delight mankind;