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This continued for some little time, but I soon found that it could not continue for ever. My classical jokes became exhausted, I gradually found the laugh less hearty on their utterance, and I was more than once reminded that I had said a thing before by some charitable friend, who thus effectually damped my spirits for the rest of the evening. I was subjected to other inconveniences: I was once or twice attacked on classical subjects by some really learned member of the company, who thought himself justified, by my quoting Latin, to single me out for discussion; and as I had not application enough to be possessed of solid learning, my ignorance was soon exposed, and of course remembered. Besides, one must not quote Latin before ladies, and I discovered by accident that I had lost more than one invitation to parties at which ladies were invited, because, in moments of enthusiasm, I had come out with what struck me as a happy quotation in a company of both sexes. I found that I was in consequence set down as one who must be asked only to men's dinners.

This stung me to the quick, for I never could conceive what society was good for, if the other sex did not form part of it. I determined therefore, whatever line I followed, to avoid that of quoting. My uncertainty in adopting a new one was removed by the character which I heard of an officer from a young lady whom I one day sat next. "He was the pleasantest man she knew." I inquired, as closely as good-breeding permitted, what were the qualities that entitled him to this enviable distinction. I found that he drew very well," and sung so sweetly, and was always so ready to take any part at the piano-forte." Well, thought I, my great object is to please, and the way is now pointed out to me by undoubted authority, by one of those whose favour I most desire to gain. I must learn to sing and to draw.

"Sad was the hour and luckless was the day," when I formed this determination. Oh, Mr. Editor, the labour it entailed on me baffles description. "Si sis desidiosus, ama," says Ovid. If he had ever had a music-master, he would have recommended singing. I succeeded, however, tolerably in understanding the science, after ten months incessant labour, during which I did nothing but study all day, and dream all night, of notes, half-notes, crotchets, and minims. When I had got a footing in this torturing science, I began on my drawing, and the union of the two somewhat lightened the irksomeness of my labour. But I discovered, like the philosopher who found that the acquirement of knowledge only taught him his ignorance, that Nature must have the greatest share in the merits of the singer and draughtsman. Some happy beings with little labour attain great perfection, because they have a natural turn for the pursuit : others, who have not, may toil for years without success; and to these accomplishments may be reasonably applied what Gibbon has unjustly said more generally, "The power of education is seldom of much avail except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."

The period at length arrived at which I was to receive the longdesired reward of my labours: I stood up one evening in compliance

with urgent requests, and bore my part in a song; I succeeded, rather, to be sure, in assisting others to please than in pleasing myself, but I was gratified by the commendations bestowed on my performance, and by being told what a useful man I should be. Mortifications, however, soon followed. I was sometimes out, sometimes turned over the leaf of the music-book too soon, sometimes was condemned to sing with a lady whose voice was as ill-suited to mine as the scream of a mackaw to the roar of a lion, and more than once was annoyed by being chained to the piano-forte, when a charming girl, whom I was longing to talk with, was sitting at a distant corner of the room with some happy unaccomplished child of leisure by her side, looking unutterable things. I found too that I was asked to "a very small party" in the evening, instead of being invited to dinner; and after all, my chief purport of making myself agreeable in conversation was unanswered, for I could not, of course, talk about music, and, as I could not sing without it, I had not the power of promoting conviviality by " chansons à boire." As to drawing, I never had an opportunity of exercising my talent, except once at the house of a friend in the country, who requested me to make a sketch of his house; in compliance with whose wish I passed most of my short visit in reducing to perspective the lines of an uninteresting square house, while the rest of the party were taking a ride over the beautiful country round it.

While I was regretting the inapplicability to my purpose of shining in society as an agreeable man, of my studies in music and drawing, I met a gentleman at dinner one day who delighted me, and apparently others, by his success in a very different line. He had an amazing fund of general knowledge, and an infallible memory for the dates of history and chronology. Whatever subject was started, he had something to say on it, and something which removed all doubts respecting it. In one instance only did he hesitate. We were disputing the age of the celebrated Duchess of This he would not take

on himself to state from memory, but he supplied the defect by drawing from his pocket a very small memorandum-book, written in a neat diminutive hand, from which he read to us the date of her birth,. This man delighted me more than any I had yet met, as mixing so much of the useful with the agreeable. I outstaid him, that I might hear the opinion of others, before I fixed or acted on my own; and all the party, even the youngest of the ladies, agreed that he was one of the pleasantest men they knew."

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This was enough for me. To work I went immediately: I increased my library as much as a prudent regard to finances permitted me; I subscribed to the most extensive circulating library in town; I attended Feinagle's lectures, and got by heart all the Memoria Technicas that ever were; I carefully read the histories the events of which were most likely to be discussed in conversation, making copious notes from them in a commonplace-book, and I did not forget the small memorandum-book (which, however, I resolved should appear as seldom as possible) in which I noted down the dates of such occurrences as are most generally the theme of conversation. All this cost

me infinite labour and no small degree of confinement; but I consoled myself with the reflection, that even if I missed my first object of shining in society, I was acquiring a good stock of useful and available knowledge.

I succeeded in this line with more satisfaction to myself than in any I had yet tried, for the display of my stores evidently procured me respect. But I found I had put myself in possession of a weapon which nothing but the most delicate management could prevent from recoiling on my own head, like a flail in an unskilful hand. I was placed on my guard against this by an incident that occurred soon after I began to shew my powers. A gentleman was shewing in a party where I was present an old English coin, much defaced, of which the date was all obliterated except the figure 8. This he passed round with great delight as one of Egbert, and descanted very learnedly on his reasons for attributing it to that monarch; but I defeated his arguments at one blow, by saying that the Arabic figures were not introduced into Europe till 991, nearly two hundred years after Egbert's accession to the throne. My triumph was complete, and I got great credit for my accuracy; but I had made an enemy of the possessor of the coin, whose ignorance I had exposed, and whose temper was in consequence soured for the rest of the evening, a result for which I suffered in the estimation of the lady of the house, for his fortune and station made him a much more welcome guest at her table than I was.

I could guard against this in future; but there was another inconvenience, from which I found it more difficult to shield myself. I discovered that it required higher rank and more consideration than I enjoyed to be so prominent a figure in company as I was frequently rendered by the introduction of my knowledge. No one could be more cautious than I was not to obtrude my learning, to avoid which I found the safest way was never to begin a subject, but to take it up when advanced by others: but still I often saw that for one who was edified or pleased by my illustrations, three or four were ennuyés (with all my studies, Mr. Editor, I could never find an English word to express that); and this happened the more frequently to me, because, as my character spread, I was applied to by some one, at the end of the table perhaps, whom I could not answer without being heard by all the rest of the party. Among my young acquaintance, too, I got the name of "the Dictionary," a character which subjects a man to numberless disappointments, for he loses more reputation by owning his inability to answer one question, than he gains by replying to fifty. I was once indirectly attacked by a dolt, who scarcely ever spoke three words, and when he did, two of them were not to the purpose, with a sneer against those who read for conversation. I did not condescend to defend this class of men against him; but surely, Mr. Editor, this is a most unjust prejudice, for if a man be entertaining, what can it signify to those whom he amuses how he collected his materials? These evils struck me so forcibly, that I began to take almost as much pains to hide my knowledge as I had before to acquire it.

I now lay on my oars awhile: I was disheartened by the failure of the attempts I had hitherto made, and began to suspect that my very efforts to please prevented my pleasing, and that this object could only be attained by an ease of manner which was incompatible with anxiety to enjoy it. I was confirmed in this idea by a casual meeting with Charles Annesley: I had never hitherto met with any one who was so completely the model of what I wished and had tried to become. We dined at six o'clock, and were detained at our wine, (though none of us drank much) till half-past ten, solely by the attraction of his conversation. During all this time he talked incessantly, yet nobody thought he talked a word too much, or seemed to desire for a moment to take the lead out of his hands. Not a subject was started on which he did not give information, useful or entertaining, or both: I never knew such a memory. He had all the best of our poets at his beck, and without the least apparent effort, brought in, as aptly as if it formed part of his own conversation, the finest or liveliest passages of their works. The playfulness of his style gave animation to the least observation he made; and his gentle manner and high breeding enabled him to level his opponents in argument, without the possibility of their being offended. To two foreign gentlemen in the party, a Frenchman and an Italian, he talked in their own languages as easily and as fluently as if he had been born in their capitals. He retailed all the epigrams and smart sayings current at the moment in the first circles, and seemed to know every thing and every body. The latter, indeed, he was likely to do; for he kept the best company, being himself possessed of large independent property, and the son and heir of one of the first landed proprietors of the country, and one of the most distinguished members of the House of Commons. He had travelled very extensively, both in Europe and Asia, and introduced occasionally the most amusing descriptions of the people he had visited, and the most scientific remarks on the objects of curiosity he had seen: so copious, indeed, and so delightful was the fund of diversion which his travels had enabled him to collect and dispense, that he made every one who heard him anxious to follow the route he had taken, though he always ended with assuring us, that England was the best country after all. The delight with which I contemplated the accomplishments of Annesley was as active as it was fervent. I did not see why, by attention and study, I might not succeed in following his steps, except indeed in the advantages of distinguished society, in which his station and riches gave him an unavoidable advantage over me. His skill in languages, and his knowledge of foreign countries and manners, could only be attained by travelling, and accordingly I resolved to travel.

I had little preparations to delay me, and soon embarked in a packet, with fewer definable motives probably for travelling than most of the thousands who have overrun Europe since the peace, but with a fixed determination to be able to speak some other language beside my own, and to be able to say in my turn what drove Sterne abroad "They manage these things better in France." I employed two

years in visiting the greater part of France, Italy, and Germany; and I returned eight months ago, with a fair knowledge of the countries and people I saw, and the power of conversing with ease in the language of the two former.

I am not dissatisfied with the success of my experiment, though in this, as in all human undertakings, the result falls short of the expectation. I at least find myself a very welcome guest among my friends; and only a fortnight ago, was delighted by a young lady's telling me that she had dined the day before at a very stupid party, where I was very much wanted. I find it a much easier, as well as more successful manner of making myself agreeable, to follow the conversation instead of trying to lead it. Whatever I see ludicrous in the course of my excursions, or read in that of my studies, I carefully treasure up, to introduce when it can come in à propos. One thing I particularly avoid, as a rock on which I have often seen others split, to enter unbidden on the subject of my travels; and here, by the by, I have to complain of being sometimes wantonly forced to be a bore entirely without fault of my own. Now and then, some one of the party, who would not the least care if I were buried eleven fathoms deep in the Frozen ocean, from politeness, asks me some question about my travels, which I must answer, and cannot answer briefly, though I am perfectly aware that neither the inquirer nor any one else present, is the least interested in the reply. I think I have at length discovered the secret of shining in conversation, and will report the result of my researches for the benefit of those who may be enabled, by station or talent, to make more advantage of it than I can: "To be able to say something on the subject that may be started without shewing any anxiety or impatience to say it." More of the success than can be conceived, depends on the power of listening patiently and cheerfully; and I cannot better close this article than by quoting a saying of the Prince de Ligne, which should be deeply engraved in the minds of all who wish to render themselves agreeable in society, and to the remembrance of which I must in gratitude own myself indebted for having more than once escaped making myself very much the contrary,

"Ce qui coute le plus pour plaire, c'est de cacher que l'on s'ennuie. Ce n'est pas en amusant qu'on plait. On n'amuse pas même si l'on s'amuse: c'est en faisant croire que l'on s'amuse."— Lettres du Prince de Ligne.

T.

TO A FRIEND, ON A SEAL HAVING THE DEVICE OF CUPID

WITH A LYRE, SEATED ON A LION.

EMBLEM of Nature's happiest, noblest mould!
The forest monarch famed for daring bold,
See! by an infant led-does not disdain

To own the power of Love's enchanting strain !
Thus, thou, my friend, who art as truly brave
As ever mortal was-to thee heaven gave
That charm which wins by soothing all distress-
A heart with Love's most witching tenderness.

L.

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