It is evident that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication of the rules of it.  I cannot so easily excuse the more refined critics upon behaviour, who having professed no other study, are yet infinitely defective in the most material parts of it.  Ned Fashion has been bred all his life about Court, and understands to a tittle all the punctilios of a drawing-room.  He visits most of the fine women near St. James’s, and upon all occasions says the civilest and softest things to them of any man breathing.  To Mr. Isaac[5] he owes an easy slide in his bow, and a graceful manner of coming into a room.  But in some other cases he is very far from being a well-bred person:  He laughs at men of far superior understanding to his own, for not being as well dressed as himself, despises all his acquaintance that are not quality, and in public places has on that account often avoided taking notice of some of the best speakers in the House of Commons.  He rails strenuously at both Universities before the members of either, and never is heard to swear an oath, or break in upon morality or religion, but in the company of divines.  On the other hand, a man of right sense has all the essentials of good breeding, though he may be wanting in the forms of it.  Horatio has spent most of his time at Oxford.  He has a great deal of learning, an agreeable wit, and as much modesty as serves to adorn without concealing his other good qualities.  In that retired way of living, he seems to have formed a notion of human nature, as he has found it described in the writings of the greatest men, not as he is like to meet with it in the common course of life.  Hence it is, that he gives no offence, that he converses with great deference, candour, and humanity.  His bow, I must confess, is somewhat awkward; but then he has an extensive, universal, and unaffected knowledge, which makes some amends for it.  He would make no extraordinary figure at a ball; but I can assure the ladies in his behalf, and for their own consolation, that he has writ better verses on the sex than any man now living, and is preparing such a poem for the press as will transmit their praises and his own to many generations.

[Footnote 1:  In the reprint of “The Tatler,” volume v., this number was called No. 20. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2:  Epist. ex Ponto, II. ix. 47-48.

“An understanding in the liberal arts
Softens men’s manners.”
                         [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3:  I.e. 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4:  Compare Swift’s “Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding.” [T.S.]]

[Footnote 5:  A famous dancing-master in those days. [FAULKNER.] He died in 1740. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, NUMB, 302.[1]

O Lycida, vivi pervenimus, advena nostri, (Quod numquam veriti sumus) ut possessor agelli Diceret, Haec mea sunt, veteres migrate coloni. VIRG.[2]