author perhaps, who enforces his advice, shall in the end be liftened to.

I must therefore again and again infift upon it, that there are two fides to every argument, and that it is the natural and unalienable right of man to be heard in fupport of his opinion, he having first lent a patient ear to the speaker, who maintains fentiments which oppofe that opinion: I do humbly apprehend that an overbearing voice and noify volubility of tongue, are proofs of a very underbred fellow, and it is with regret I fee fociety too frequently disturbed in it's moft delectable enjoyments by this odious character: I do not see that any man hath a right by obligation or otherwise, to lay me under a neceffity of thinking exactly as he thinks: Though I admit that from the fullness of the heart the tongue fpeaketh, I do not admit any fuperior pretenfions it hath to be Sir Oracle from the fullness of the pocket. In the name of freedom, what claim hath any man to be the tyrant of the table? As well he may avail himself of the greater force of his fifts as of his lungs. Doth fense confift in found, or is truth only to be measured by the noise it makes ? Can it be a disgrace

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to be convinced, or doth any one lose by the exchange, who refigns his own opinion for a better? When I reflect upon the advantages of our public fchools, where puerile tempers are corrected by collifion; upon the mathematical ftudies, and fcholastic exercises of our univerfities, I am no lefs grieved than aftonished to discover so few proficients in well-mannered controversy, so very few, who seem to make truth the object of their investigation, or will spare a few patient moments from the eternal repetition of their own deafening jargon to the temperate reply of men, probably better qualified to speak than themselves.

There is another grievance not unfre quent though inferior to this abovementioned, which proceeds jointly from the mixt nature of fociety, and the ebullitions of freedom in this happy country, I mean that roar of mirth and uncontrouled flow of fpirits, which hath more vulgarity in it than ease, more noife than gaiety: The stream of elegant feftivity will never overflow it's banks; the delicacy of fex, the dignity of rank, and the decorum of certain profeffions, fhould never be so overlooked, as to alarm the feelings of any person pre

fent,

sent, interested for their prefervation. When the fofter sex entrust themselves to our fociety, we should never forget the tender refpect due to them even in our gayeft hours: When the higher orders by defcending, and the lower by afcending out of their sphere, meet upon the level of good fellowship, let not our fuperiors be revolted by a rufticity however jovial, nor driven back into their faftneffes by our overftepping the partition line, and making faucy inroads into their proper quarters. Who queftions a minister about news or politics? who talks ribaldry before a bishop? once in feven years is often enough for the levelling familiarity of electioneering manners.

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There is another remark, which I cannot excuse myself from making, if it were only for the fake of those luckless beings, who being born with duller faculties, or stampt by the hand of nature with oddities either of humour, or of perfon, seem to be fet fociety as butts for the arrows of raillery and ridicule: If the object, thus made the victim of the company, feels the shaft, who but muft fuffer with him? If he feels it not, we blush for human nature, whose dignity is facrificed in his perfon; and as for

the

the profeft buffoon, I take him to have as little pretenfions to true honour, as a punfter has to true wit. There is fcope enough for all the eccentricities of character without turning cruelty into fport; let fatire take it's fhare, but let vice only shrink before it; let it filence the tongue that wantonly violates truth, or defames reputation; let it batter the infulting towers of pride, but let the air-built caftles of vanity, much more the humble roof of the indigent and infirm, never provoke it's spleen.

It happened to me not long ago to fall into company with fome very respectable perfons, chiefly of the mercantile order, where a country gentleman, who was a ftranger to most of the party, took upon him to entertain the company, with a tedious ftring of ftories of no fort of importance to any foul prefent, and all tending to dif play his own confequence, fortune and independance. Such converfation was ill calculated for the company prefent, the majority of whom had I dare fay been the founders of their own fortunes, and I should doubt if there was any quarter of the globe acceffible to commerce, which had not been reforted

reforted to by fome one or other then fitting at the table. This uninterefting egotist therefore was the more unpardonable, as he shut out every topic of curious and amufing information, which could no where meet a happier opportunity for difcuffion.

He was endured for a confiderable time with that patience which is natural to men of good manners and experience in the world: This encouragement only rendered him more infupportable; when at last an elderly gentleman feized the opportunity of a fhort pause in his difcourfe, to addrefs the following reproof to this eternal talker.

"We have liftened to you, fir, a long "time with attention, and it does not ap

pear that any body prefent is difposed to

question either your independance, or the “comforts that are annexed to it; we rejoice that you poffefs them in fo full a degree, and we wish every landed gentleman in the kingdom was in the fame happy predicament with yourself; but we "are traders, fir, and are beholden to our industry and fair-dealing for what you "inherit from your ancestors, and yourself "never toiled for: Might it not be altogether

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