ried your idea a good deal farther, and have prescribed to us the same receipt for happiness in our intercourse not only with our wives and children, but with our companions, our acquaintance, in short, with all mankind.

But, as the disposition to this is not always born with one, and as to form a temper is not so easy as to regulate a behaviour, it is the business of masters in the art of politeness, to teach people, at least the better sort of them, to counterfeit as much of this complacency in their deportment as possible. In this, indeed, they begin at quite the different end of the matter from you, Sir; complacency to husbands, wives, children, and relations, they leave people to teach themselves; but the art of pleasing every body else, as it is a thing of much greater importance, they take proportionably greater pains to instil into their disciples.

I have, for some time past, been employed in reducing this art into a system, and have some thoughts of opening a subscription for a course of lectures on the subject. To qualify myself for the task, I have studied, with unwearied attention, the letters of the immortal Earl of Chesterfield, which I intend to use as my text-book on this occasion, allowing only for the difference which even a few years produce in an art so fluctuating as this. Before I lodge my subscription paper with the booksellers, I wish to give a specimen of my abilities to the readers of the MIRROR; for which purpose I beg the favour of you to insert in your next Number the following substance of a lecture on Simulation. Our noble author, indeed, extends his doctrine the length of Dissimulation only, from which he distinguishes Simulation as something not quite so fair and honest. But, for my part, have not sufficient nicety of ideas to make the distinction, and would humbly recommend to every

person who wishes to be thoroughly well-bred, not to confuse his head with it. Taking, therefore, the shorter word as the more gentlemanlike, I proceed to my subject of

• SIMULATION.

SIMULATION is the great basis of the art which I have the honour to teach. I shall humbly en• deavour to treat this branch of my subject, though • much less ably, yet more scientifically, than my ⚫ great master, by reducing it into a form like that adopted by the professors of the other sciences, and even borrowing from them some of the terms by which I mean to illustrate it.

This rule of false (to adopt an algebraical term) I shall divide into two parts; that which regards ⚫ the external figure of the man or woman; and that ⚫ which is necessary in the accomplishment of the mind, and its seeming developement to others.

Fashion may be termed the regulator of the first, • decorum of the latter. But I must take this opportunity of informing my audience, that the signi⚫fication of words, when applied to persons

of condition, is often quite different from that which they are understood to bear in the ordinary stand⚫ard of language. With such persons (if I may be ⚫ allowed so bold an expression) it may often be the fashion to be unfashionable, and decorum to act against all propriety; good-breeding may consist in rudeness, and politeness in being very impertinent. This will hold in the passive, as well as in the ⚫ active of our art; people of fashion will be pleased ⚫ with such treatment from people of fashion, the natural feelings in this, as in the other, fine arts, giving way, amongst connoisseurs, to knowledge and taste.

Having made this preliminary observation, I return to my subject of Simulation.

nances.

• It will be found, that appearing what one is not, < is, in both divisions of my subject, the criterion of politeness. The man who is rich enough to afford fine clothes, is, by this rule of false, intitled to wear very shabby ones; while he who has a narrow fortune is to be dressed in the inverse ratio to his fiOne corollary from this proposition is obvious: he who takes off his suit on credit, and has ⚫ neither inclination nor ability to pay for it, is to be ⚫ dressed the most expensively of the three. The ⚫ same rule holds in houses, dinners, servants, horses, equipages, &c. and is to be followed, as far as the law will allow, even the length of bankruptcy, or, perhaps, a little beyond it.

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On the same principle, a simple Gentleman, or Esquire, must, at all places of public resort, be apparelled like a Gentleman or Esquire. A Baronet may take the liberty of a dirty shirt; a Lord need not shew any shirt at all, but wear a handkerchief round his neck in its stead; an Earl may add to all this a bunch of uncombed hair hanging down his back; and a Duke, over and above the privileges abovementioned, is entitled to appear in boots and buck-skin breeches.

Following the same rule of inversion, the scholar of a provincial dancing-master must bow at coming into, and going out of a drawing-room, and that pretty low too. The pupil of Gallini is to push forward with the rough stride of a porter, and make only a slight inclination of his head when he has got into the middle of the room. At going out of it, he is to take no notice of the company at all.

In the externals of the female world, from the great complication of the machine, it is not easy

to lay down precise regulations. Still, however, the rule of false may be traced as the governing principle. It is very feminine to wear a riding habit and a smart cocked hat one half of the day; because that dress approaches nearer to the mascu* line apparel than any other. It is very modest to lay open the greatest part of the neck and bosom to the view of the beholders; and it is incumbent on those ladies who occupy the front row of a box ⚫ at a play, to wear high feathers, and to wave them more unceasingly than any other ladies, because otherwise the company who sit behind might be supposed to have some desire of seeing the stage. Since I have mentioned the theatre, I may remark (though it is foreign to this part of my discourse), that, in the most affecting scenes of a tragedy, it is polite to laugh; whereas, in the ordinary detail of the two first acts, it is not required that a lady ⚫ should make any greater noise than to talk aloud to every one around her.

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Simulation of Person, which is only, indeed, a sort of dress, is only necessary among ladies of fashion. Nature is to be falsified as well in those parts of the shape which she has left small, as in those she has made large.

The Simulation of Face, I am happy to find, from ⚫ an examination of the books of some perfumers and colourmen of my acquaintance, is daily gaining ground among the politer females of this country. But it has hitherto been regulated by principles ⚫ somewhat different from those which govern other parts of external appearance, laid down in the beginning of this paper, as it is generally practised by those who are most under the necessity of practising it. I would, therefore, humbly recommend to that beautiful young lady, whom I saw at the last assembly of the season, with a coat of rouge on

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* her cheeks, to lay it aside for these three or four years at least at present, it too much resembles ⚫ their natural colour to be proper for her to wearthough, on second thoughts, I believe I may retract my advice, as the laying it on for a little while longer will reduce her skin to that dingy appearance which the rule of false allows to be converted, by paint, into the complexion of lilies and ' roses.'

The second part of my observations on this subject I shall send you at some future period, if I find you so far approve of my design as to favour this with a speedy insertion.

I am, &c.

SIMULATOR.

V

N° 39. TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1779.

As it is the business of the politician to bestow his chief attention on the encouragement and regulation of those members of the community who contribute most to the strength and permanency of the state; so it is the duty of the moral writer to employ his principal endeavours to regulate and correct those affections of the mind, which, when carried to excess, often obscure the most deserving characters, though they are seldom or never to be found among the worthless.

It is vain to think of reclaiming by human means, those rooted vices which proceed from a depraved or unfeeling heart. Avarice is not to be