In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons.  Of the latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found.  Of my friend Hunt, I have already said, that he is any thing but vulgar in his manners; and of his disciples, therefore, I will not judge of their manners from their verses.  They may be honourable and gentlemanly men, for what I know; but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications.  They remind me of Mr. Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in “Evelina.”  In these things (in private life, at least,) I pretend to some small experience; because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries, down to the London boxer, the “flash and the swell,” the Spanish muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch highlander, and the Albanian robber;—­to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian social life.  Far be it from me to presume that there ever was, or can be, such a thing as an aristocracy of poets; but there is a nobility of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly from education,—­which is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt’s little chorus.  If I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should say that it is only to be defined by examples—­of those who have it, and those who have it not.  In life, I should say that most military men have it, and few naval;—­that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers;—­that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they are not pedants); that fencing-masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not an Irishism to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than among men.  In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never make entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it.  It is the salt of society, and the seasoning of composition. Vulgarity is far worse than downright blackguardism; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, “signifying nothing.”  It does not depend upon low themes, or even low language, for Fielding revels in both;—­but is he ever vulgar?  No.  You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,—­its master, not its slave.  Your vulgar writer is always most vulgar, the higher, his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidcock’s was wont to say,—­“This, gentlemen, is the eagle of the sun, from Archangel, in Russia; the otterer it is, the