We should not attempt to rival or excel a fop in dress; but it is necessary to dress, to avoid singularity and ridicule. Great care should be taken to be always dressed like the reasonable people of our own age, in the place where we are, whose dress is never spoken of, one way or another, as neither too negligent nor too much studied.*

Awkwardness of carriage is very alienating, and a total negligence of dress and air an impertinent insult upon custom and fashion. Women have

*Let your dress be conformable to the customs of the age you live in, and suitable to your condition; for it is not in our power to alter the general fashions at our pleasure; which, as they are produced, so they are swallowed up, by time. In the mean while, every one may make shift to accommodate the general fashion to his own particular convenience, as the case may require. Thus, (for instance,) if you happen to have longer legs than the rest of mankind, and short coats are in vogue, you may take care that your coat be not the very shortest; but rather somewhat less short than the extremity of the fashion requires: or if any one has either too slender, or too fleshy, or even distorted legs, let not such a one distinguish himself by stockings of a scarlet or any other very conspicuous colour, that he may not attract the notice of others to his defects.

No part of your dress ought to be either too splendid, or enormously fringed or laced, lest, perhaps, you should be said to have stolen Cupid's mantle or the buskins of Ganymede.

But whatever your clothes arc, take care that they be well made; that they will sit with a grace, and be fitted to your person; that you may not appear to have borrowed them of a friend, or hired them for the day: but, above all things, they should be suited to your rank and profession; that a scholar be not dressed like a soldier, or an officer like a buffoon or dancing-master-Galateo.

great influence as to a man's fashionable character; and an awkward man will never have their votes, which are very numerous, and oftener counted than weighed.

When we are once well dressed for the day, we should think no more of it afterwards; and, without any stiffness for fear of discomposing that dress, we should be as easy and natural as if we had no clothes on at all.

Dancing, likewise, though a silly trifling thing, is one of those established follies which people of sense are sometimes obliged to conform to; and, if they do, they should be able to perform it well.

In dancing, the motion of the arms should be particularly attended to, as these decide a man's being genteel or otherwise, more than any other part of the body. A twist or stiffness in the wrist will make any man look awkward. If a man dances well from the waist upwards, wears his hat well, and moves his head properly, he dances well. Coming into a room and presenting yourself to a company should be also attended to, as this always gives the first impression, which is often indelible. Those who present themselves well, have a certain dignity in their air, which, without the least seeming mixture of pride, at once engages and is respected.

Drinking of healths.

Drinking of healths is now growing out of fashion, and is deemed unpolite in good company. Custom once had rendered it universal, but the improved manners of the age now consider it as absurd and vulgar. What can be more rude or ridiculous than to interrupt persons at their meals with

an unnecessary compliment? Abstain, then, from this silly custom where you find it disused; and use it only at those tables where it continues general.*

Assurance.

A steady assurance is too often improperly st~led impudence. For my part, I see no impudence, but, on the contrary, infinite utility and advantage, in presenting one's self with the same coolness and

*To drink to any one, and teaze him to pledge you in larger glasses, against his inclination, is, in itself, an execrable custom; which, however, has so far prevailed, as to appear impossible almost ever to be abolished. But you will, I am persuaded, gladly abstain from this vile practice; though, if you should be urged by others, and cannot entirely resist their importunity, you may thank them, and say that you willingly yield them the victory; or, without taking a larger draught, you may lightly taste what is presented to you.

And indeed this custom of drinking healths is sufficiently ancient; and was formerly much practised in Greece itself; for Socrates is highly applauded by some writers, that, after spending the whole night in drinking largely with Aristophanes, as soon as it was light in the morning, he would delineate and demonstrate any the most subtle geometrical problem without the least hesitation; an evident proof, indeed, that the wine had not yet done him any injury: but this is rather to be ascribed to the strength of his brain, and to a good constitution, than to the temperance of a philosopher. Yet from this instance, and other frivolous arguments, some people have endeavoured to prove the expediency of drinking freely sometimes; though I can by no means assent to their opinion; notwithstanding that, by a pompous parade of words, some learned men have so managed it, that an unjust cause has often gained the victory, and reason submitted to sophistry and chicane.-Galateo.

unconcern in any and every company: till one can do that, I am very sure that one can never present one's self well. Whatever is done under concern and embarrassment, must be ill done; and till a man is absolutely easy and unconcerned in every company, he will never be thought to have kept good, nor be very welcome in it. Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty clear the way to merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by difficulties in its journey: whereas bare-faced impudence is the noisy and blustering harbinger of a worthless and senseless usurper.

Hurry.

A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry, because he knows, that whatever he does in a hurry he must necessarily do very ill. He may be in haste to dispatch an affair, but he will take care not to let that haste hinder his doing it well. Little minds are in a hurry, when the object proves (as it commonly does) too big for them; they run, they hare, they puzzle, confound, and perplex themselves; they want to do every thing at once, and never do it at all. But a man of sense takes the time necessary for doing the thing he is about well; and his haste to dispatch a business only appears by the continuity of his application to it: he pursues it with a cool steadiness, and finishes it before he begins any other.

Laughter.

Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill-manners:* it is the manner in.

* We ought also to abstain from a foolish, rustic, and insipid, horse-laugh, merely because we have contracted

which the mob expresses their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry. In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter. True wit or sense never yet made any body laugh; they are above it; they please the mind, and give a cheerfulness to the countenance. But it is low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter; and that is what people of sense and breeding should show themselves above. A man's going to sit down, in the supposition that he has a chair behind him, and falling down upon his breech for want of one, sets a whole company laughing, when all the wit in the world would not do it; a plain proof, in my mind, how low and unbecoming a thing laughter is; not to mention the disagreeable noise that it makes, and the shocking distortion of the face that it occasions.

Many people, at first, from awkwardness, have' got a very disagreeable and silly trick of laughing whenever they speak: and I know men of very good parts, who cannot say the commonest thing without laughing; which makes those who do not know them, take them at first for natural foals.

Letter-writing.

It is of the utmost importance to write letters well; as this is a talent which daily occurs, as well in business as in pleasure; and inaccuracies in orthography, or in style, are never pardoned but in

a silly habit of laughing, perhaps, rather from any necessity there is for it: nor ought you to laugh at any joke or smart saying of your own; for you will be thought to applaud your own wit. It belongs to the company, and not to him who says a good thing, to express their appro bation by a laugh.-Galateo.