those monsters of conversation, who are grave or gay above their years.  He never converses but with followers of nature and good sense, where all that is uttered is only the effect of a communicable temper, and not of emulation to excel their companions; all desire of superiority being a contradiction to that spirit which makes a just conversation, the very essence of which is mutual goodwill.  Hence it is, that I take it for a rule, that the natural, and not the acquired man, is the companion.  Learning, wit, gallantry, and good breeding, are all but subordinate qualities in society, and are of no value, but as they are subservient to benevolence, and tend to a certain manner of being or appearing equal to the rest of the company; for conversation is composed of an assembly of men, as they are men, and not as they are distinguished by fortune:  therefore he that brings his quality with him into conversation, should always pay the reckoning; for he came to receive homage, and not to meet his friends—­But the din about my ears from the clamour of the people I was with this evening, has carried me beyond my intended purpose, which was to explain upon the Order of Merry Fellows; but I think I may pronounce of them, as I heard good Senecio, with a spice of wit of the last age, say, viz. that a Merry Fellow is the Saddest Fellow in the world.

[Footnote 437:  See No. 44.  Blackall was a bishop; and the University of Oxford had declared publicly in his favour.]

[Footnote 438:  See No. 11.]

[Footnote 439:  A meeting for conferring degrees, when speeches, &c., are delivered.]

[Footnote 440:  An undergraduate who made extempore speeches at the Act, often of a very satirical kind.  Sometimes there were two terrae filii, who carried on a dialogue.  In 1721, Amberst published a periodical with the title “Terrae-Filius:  or, The Secret History of the University of Oxford,” and these papers were reprinted in two volumes in 1726, with a curious engraving of the Theatre at Oxford, by Hogarth, as frontispiece.]

[Footnote 441:  See No. 26.]

[Footnote 442:  In an Essay “Of Heroic Plays,” prefixed to his play, “Almanzor and Almahide; or, The Conquest of Granada,” Dryden defended at length the character of Almanzor.]

[Footnote 443:  This village is the scene of Dr. William King’s play, “Joan of Hedington” ("Works,” 1776, vol. iii. p. 16).]

No. 46. [STEELE.

From Saturday, July 23, to Tuesday, July 26, 1709.

Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur,
Majestas et amor. 
OVID, Met. ii. 846.

* * * * *

White’s Chocolate-house, July 25.